


White Swallow

by Loftec



Series: Book & Movie AUs [4]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: 90s, AU, Alternate Universe - The Matrix Fusion, Domestic Bliss, Happy Ending, M/M, Mental Illness, angsty middle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:29:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 106,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loftec/pseuds/Loftec
Summary: Seven years after Mickey wakes up to a tire iron pressed into his back, it's like the universe is shouting at him to go for it when he bumps into his first crush again, grown all the fuck up and suddenly available in a way he never was to Mickey back then. One thing quickly leads to another, and feelings he thought had been long since buried flare up when Ian Gallagher steps back into his life and pretty much knocks him off his feet.But falling in love with Ian starts a chain of events that shake Mickey's comfortable life around, until love and family become the only fixed points he's got in a strange new world.AU. Explicit. See notes at the beginning of the fic for more details and warnings.





	1. December 5, 1998

**Author's Note:**

> Explicit for sexual content. 
> 
> Warnings for mentions of past non-con and sexual assault. Warning for some violence and homophobic slurs.
> 
> TW for mental illness. This fic will deal with Ian's mental illness, to a certain extent. I try to write about difficult things with a sense of hope, and I don't do unhappy endings, but please be aware that mental illness is one of the themes of this story, and will be brought up in different ways.

December 5, 1998

 

”Holy shit, you didn’t?”

”Sure did,” Mickey smirks at his date’s shocked expression, slowly pulling into a wide grin, ”asshole thinks he knows best, better fucking believe I let him sleep in that bed the way he made it.”

Eric huffs and brings his Irish stout to his lips, hesitating for a second before he takes a sip. They don’t know each other that well, yet, but Mickey knows that look.

”What?” he asks and he supposes that there’s no mistaking the challenge in his voice.

”Nothing,” Eric says, but he frowns and he’s clearly about to contradict himself, ”just-, I mean, it _is_ your job to fix the photocopier, isn’t it?”

”Sure,” Mickey says with a shrug, ”and if he’d let me do my job I would’ve done my fucking job. They literally wouldn’t be able to take a dump in that building if I wasn’t there fixing their plumbing after they’ve shat out one of their corporate fucking lunches-”

Eric makes a face and Mickey rolls his eyes, Jesus Fucking Christ, they’re not even eating, he’s not being _that_ gross.

”-and I’m yanking papers outta five separate copiers on a steady rotation,” he continues, glossing over his poo faux pas, ”you think I don’t know it’s my job to fix their shit after they’ve stuck their incompetent asses where they don’t belong? I know what my job is, man, and listening to Anderson lecturing me about toner is not in the fucking handbook.”

To his credit, Eric chuckles and holds up his hands in defeat. ”You’re just bitter that they get treated to lunch every other week and they never invite you.”

”Fuck you, ’course I’m bitter,” Mickey mutters and knocks back the last of his whiskey before he starts scooting out of his seat, ”want another one?”

Eric smiles up at him, like it’s fucking adorable or some shit that Mickey asks. ”I’m good, thanks.”

”Suit yourself,” Mickey shrugs, but smiles a little, too, as he starts moving backwards and Eric looks him over. They don’t see eye to eye about a lot of things, Eric grew up different and there’s shit they’re never gonna agree on no matter how long this dating thing works out between them. Mickey thinks that’s fine, it isn’t Eric’s fault his parents were middle-class and hippie libertarians, like it isn’t Mickey’s fault that his parents were white supremacist dickheads, on top of being both poor and criminal. But then there’s the stuff they do have in common, and Mickey really fucking likes it when Eric looks at him like he’s got rainbows comin’ outta his ass. They’ve been dating for a few weeks but banging for months, and it’s just about as good as that stuff gets. Eric is big and hard and he’s not afraid to toss Mickey around a little, once he really gets into it. They work well together, physically, even though it took some work to get the dating thing down pat. Well, it’s still something of a work in progress.

Thank fuck for social lubricants.

Mickey turns around and wedges the tips of his fingers down the back of his jeans, dragging them along his belt to check that his shirt is still nice and tucked, and maybe to pull Eric’s attention to his assets as he’s walking away, putting some of that proud swagger in his step. Another double and another hour of inane smalltalk, tops, and they can go back to Eric’s and bang. Another few weeks, months maybe, and all the little things Mickey’s finding annoying about the guy now might become familiar, and endearing, and screwing might no longer be the main event. Or they’ll be fed up with each other, and the sex won’t be enough to keep them together. Whatever, all Mickey knows is what’s gonna go down tonight, and he knows he’s gonna enjoy it.

He walks up to the bar, tapping his fingers gently over the smooth wooden surface as he drags his gaze over the shelves of booze, waiting on the bartender to get to him.

”Hey,” a low voice to his right pulls his attention, and he glances at the guy at the end of the bar, a few good feet away. Redhead, strong face, broad shoulders but lean muscles, smug smile, probably wouldn’t recognize a ’no’ even if it punched him in the face. Mickey gives him an unimpressed once-over, just to fuck with him, and then turns his attention back to the bartender, now in front of him and waiting for his order.

”Whiskey,” Mickey tells him, ”double, straight.”

There’s an amused huff to his right at his last word, and Mickey knows what’s coming even before the man opens his mouth. 

”You sure about that?”

Mickey sighs and turns to face him more fully, happy to see some of that smug-ass cockiness slip from the guy’s eyes when he does.

”Not gonna happen, freckles,” he says and shoos condescendingly at him with one hand, ignoring his fairly decent impression of a kicked puppy, ”so back the fuck off, alright?”

He turns back to the bartender to pay for his drink, pulling out his wallet from his back pocket. He’s vaguely aware of the guy still staring at him, grey eyes boring into the side of his face, he can tell he’s leaning in further over the bar, his hair like fire under the sharp bar lights, shining up Mickey’s periphery. He ignores him and slaps a few notes down on the bar, and grabs his whiskey so he can leave before the bartender even tries to return his petty change. 

When he sits back down Eric immediately starts up about his week, like he makes an effort to dive right in there and do the full report. Despite all of their deeply rooted differences, this was the thing their first fight ended up being about. Mickey doesn’t ask about Eric’s day, he doesn’t ask about his week, so he doesn’t wanna know and he doesn’t care, apparently. No one in Mickey’s twenty-four years alive has ever asked him about his fucking day, it’s just not something that comes naturally to him. If he’s got something to say, he’ll say it, if someone wants to tell him something, he’ll listen. If he didn’t care about Eric or liked listening to his everyday bullshit, then they wouldn’t be dating, simple as that. But apparently it was hurtful, and apparently he had to change. He tried, he really did, but his awkward questions didn’t convince, at all, and Eric eventually conceded that maybe he could try, too, and maybe learn to share stuff without being prompted.

So they’re compromising, and it’s working pretty well. And Mickey can listen to Eric rambling on about the guys at work and shipments that’ve gone wrong and the chick in reception that can’t take a hint, and it’s pretty alright now that he doesn’t have to pretend he’s more interested than he really is.

They stay for another half hour, finishing their drinks and Eric doing most of the talking. They’re laughing at some lame joke that sounds ten times better with a light buzz in the back seat when Mickey knocks back his glass only to find that it’s empty.

”Wanna get outta here?” he asks, voice a little lower than he’d really intended, but whatever. It gets the message across and Eric’s eyes somehow grow a darker brown and his lips twitch into a knowing grin.

”Yeah,” he says and downs the last of his stout, ”just gotta pee first.”

Mickey nods and they get up, gathering their coats and making sure nothing’s left behind. 

”I’ll wait outside,” Mickey tells him and ignores Eric’s exasperated sigh, starting to walk towards the door before he gets the chance to object.

He does anyway, voice loud enough for the whole fucking bar to hear. ”Please don’t smoke.”

Mickey doesn’t turn around, he just gives his kinda-boyfriend the finger over his shoulder and digs out a half-empty pack of cigarettes with his free hand, shouldering the door open. It’s cold outside and Mickey lights up the second he steps out on the freshly snow-dusted sidewalk, so he can leave the burning cigarette dangling from his lips and shove his hands down the warm pockets of his coat. The air is nice and crisp and the noisy sound of his busy city instantly puts his mind at ease. 

He knows he’s got a few good minutes to himself out there, Eric hates his smoking and tends to take some extra time doing his business in these situations so Mickey can finish his cigarette before they walk the three blocks from the bar to Eric’s apartment. It works out really well for Mickey and he savors the alone time almost as much as he does the calming poison tingling through his bloodstream.

He’s one unlucky bastard tonight though, because he’s not alone.

”Hey.”

Mickey sighs and tips his head back, eyes closed, before he turns around to face the clearly dimwitted redhead he thought he’d successfully shot down not one hour ago.

”Really?” he asks and raises his eyebrows at the guy’s pleased smile, ”dude, I’m clearly here with someone, I’m sure guys fall at your fucking feet left right and center, but not tonight. Go try that tall, dark stranger shit with some other asshole, will ya?”

To his surprise, the guy’s smile only widens while Mickey’s trying his hardest to piss him off enough to shake him, and when he’s done the idiot lets out a dramatic sigh and clutches at his chest as he falls back a step, rolling his eyes like he’s been deadly wounded but really only ending up looking like a dime-store mime.

”That really hurts, Mickey,” he says, as he makes a miraculous recovery and stops play-acting to look at Mickey with sparkling eyes and an amused twist to his lips, ”that’s twice you’ve broken my heart, now. Not sure you’re gonna get any more chances after this.”

Mickey stares at the guy as the truth slowly dawns on him, and he recalls pushed down memories of the only person he’s ever known with hair that red and eyes that big, even though being faced with this stretched and filled out version of him is borderline bizarre.

”Gallagher?” he almost spits out, because what are the fucking odds?

And Ian fucking Gallagher spreads his arms out his sides, a still burning cigarette wedged in between two fingers and a cocky tilt to his smile that makes him look at least twenty-five percent asshole but one hundred percent fuckable, and absolutely nothing like the kid Mickey’d once been on the verge of knowing.

”Well fuck,” Mickey succinctly sums up the whole situation and puts his cigarette to his lips, more or less just as an excuse to take a moment and check the new Ian out in silence, looking him up and down through his slow exhale, smoke breaking and billowing around Ian’s body, ”look who grew the fuck up.”

”And look who came out,” Ian counters, jutting his chin out a little and gesturing towards Mickey with one hand, like he’s presenting his gay ass to the world. Mickey searches the cadence of his voice and every line of his face for any kind of bitterness or resentment, but all he finds is something looking a lot like appreciation. Maybe a little bit of baffled pride, too.

”Yeah, guess so,” Mickey says and wouldn’t have been able to keep from smiling even if he wanted to.

”Heard you got married,” Ian carefully prods further and he sounds curious, but not in the way most people do when they’re trying to bring Mickey down, accuse him of shit they don’t know the first thing about.

Mickey confirms the rumor with a nod, but decides not to fill Ian in on the facts, just yet. ”Heard you joined the army.”

Ian looks genuinely surprised by that. ”You did?”

”Yeah,” Mickey narrows his eyes and pulls at his cigarette, sifting out smoke through his teeth before he continues, ”Mandy wouldn’t shut up about you for the longest fucking time, man, Ian this, Ian that. Heard you got kicked out, too, before you ask.”

”Mandy,” Ian says and nods, and Mickey catches the edge of a pained expression before Ian dips his head and shifts his stance, his whole face falling in shadow when he angles it away from the dull yellows of the street light above and the slowly blinking reds and blues of the bar’s neon signage. 

Mickey hadn’t been particularly close with his sister at the time but he’d known that while her relationship with Ian had been fake, her love for him had not. And he’d seen her fall for the older brother, Lip, and then completely fall apart when he broke her heart. Mickey isn’t sure why he hadn’t tried to murder the smug bastard over it, but he supposes he didn’t because Mandy never asked him to. And maybe also because he’d been busy avoiding any and all Gallaghers like the fucking plague, at the time. He’d beed scared shitless whenever he’d come home to see that mop of red hair stick up over the back of the couch, or think he saw a flash of freckles in the corner of his eye at school.

He’s not scared at all now, when Ian’s face catches the light again and he peers up at Mickey with a million questions in his eyes.

”Didn’t know you knew about me,” he says.

Mickey shrugs. ”Tryna keep shit secret in our neighborhood is just pointless.”

Ian actually smiles at that, like he thinks that’s some kinda charming, nice thing.

”Right,” he hums, ”guess you heard _why_ they kicked me out, too?”

Mickey nods. He’s not sure he ever knew exactly what any of it meant, but Mandy told him about the botched helicopter heist and Ian’s great disappearing act. And she told him about the forced hospitalization and the following diagnosis, she even tried to explain to him what bipolar actually meant, like she needed someone to listen to the words so she could understand them herself. But Mickey had been really good at pretending like he didn’t care and after a while she stopped telling him shit, and then she’d just left.

”’Cause of the-,” Mickey starts and points towards his head with a gesture that’s most likely incredibly offensive to most, twirling his finger and widening his eyes. Ian laughs.

”Right, because of the-,” he repeats and taps a finger against his temple, ”batshit crazy, turns out.”

”Your mom,” Mickey remembers, riding the insensitivity train all the way to the end station.

”DNA,” Ian shrugs, ”the gift that keeps on giving.”

Mickey grins and tries to recall the last time he had an easier, more interesting conversation with someone. He’s standing on the street at ten PM on a Saturday, in the middle of freezing winter, talking to Ian Gallagher about shit he’s never wanted to talk to anyone about before, about his own disastrous marriage and Ian’s life-long mental disorder, and somehow it still feels fucking _easy_.

And Ian smiles, and he shakes his head as he pulls on his cigarette, the smoke curling around his face with a slow exhale, his eyes fixed firmly on Mickey.

”Mickey Milkovich,” he says, like he can’t believe it, ”used to have such a puppy fucking crush on you, you knew that?”

Mickey picks up his eyebrows and tries to ignore the way his stomach seems to flip all the way around. ”Oh yeah?”

Ian groans and casts his eyes heavenward, as though he’s silently asking for strength. Mickey can’t tell if he’s being serious or not but when he looks back at Mickey there’s no trace of a joke in his eyes, even though his mouth’s still trying to make light. ”Jesus, it was so fucking embarrassing. Even lied to Mandy and said we couldn’t study at my house, just so I could casually bump into you and maybe…”

He leaves the rest unsaid with an embarrassed shrug. This was news to Mickey. Even though he’d done his very best to avoid Ian when he came over to hang with Mandy, the kid had never seemed too interested in him anyway. Had never looked at him, or said anything, or tried anything. Mickey knows with terrifying certainty that he would have succumbed without a second thought if he ever had.

Mickey drops his half-burnt cigarette and carefully grinds it into the cold sludge on the ground, before he clears his throat and looks up at Ian, staring back at him like he’s waiting for something.

”I-,” Mickey starts but cuts himself off when the door opens behind Ian and noise and light flood the street for a second as Eric steps outside. Mickey catches Eric’s eye, causing him to smile and walk towards them, straightening his collar and adjusting his scarf.

”Ready?” he asks, coming up to Mickey, but his smile falters a little when Mickey looks from him to Ian and then back again, alerting him of the third presence. ”Who’s this?”

”Gallagher,” Mickey introduces Ian and drops his hand when he realizes he’s rubbing it nervously over the corner of his mouth and Eric turns to stand next to him, facing Ian curiously, ”we kinda grew up together.”

”Was Mandy’s best friend,” Ian explains with a friendly smile and holds out a hand, cigarette hanging from the other and angled away from their conversation, ”haven’t seen this one in seven years.”

Eric smiles back and accepts his hand, shaking it. ”Blast from the past. I’m Eric.”

”Ian,” Ian nods and his eyes flit back to Mickey for a second as they let go, before he looks over at Eric again, ”you leaving?”

”Yeah, ’bout to head home,” Eric says with a pleased sigh, turning to Mickey and gently pressing a hand to the small of his back. The hand immediately falls away however, and Mickey shoots him an exasperated scowl. One time Mickey tells him he’s not the touchy-feely type and Mr Sensitive decides to make a big deal and insist on being so fucking careful about the causal closeness it’s almost annoying. Anyway, if something’s rubbing Mickey the wrong way right now it isn’t the PDA, but the way Eric says ’home’ like it isn’t _his_ , but _theirs_.

”Alright, well-,” Ian says and twists a little to angle himself away from them as he pulls on his cigarette and then blows out smoke behind him, tossing the still glowing butt down the sidewalk, ”gotta get back inside. Nice to meet you, Eric.”

”You too,” Eric says with a polite nod before he starts walking away, stopping a few feet away to wait on Mickey, giving them some semblance of privacy to say goodbye.

”Hey,” Ian says and laughs when Mickey rolls his eyes, ”really great to see you, Mick.”

Mickey frowns at the stupid nickname, no one’s called him ’Mick’ since he was nineteen and Mandy still lived at home. He can’t recall Ian ever calling him Mick before, and he wonders for a second when he picked that up. But then Ian puts one of his big hands on his shoulder and Mickey doesn’t even think about it, he falls into the offered man-hug and pushes away the thought that he wouldn’t have minded if they’d dropped the ’man’ caveat and gone straight for a nice, lingering embrace.

”Yeah,” he says into Ian’s firm shoulder and winces at the way he’s being patted on the back, like a motherfucking bro.

But then Ian squeezes him a little closer and his hand stills for a moment to press in between his shoulder blades, and he shifts his head so his cheek grazes over Mickey’s temple and his voice falls to a mumbled whisper. ”Proud of you.”

Mickey blinks over at him when Ian lets go and steps back, unsure if he heard that right or just imagined it. But then Ian gives him a sheepish grin and shrugs his shoulders against the cold, and fuck it if he doesn’t suddenly look exactly like Mickey remembers him.

”Whatever,” Mickey huffs and shakes his head when Ian smiles happily at his awkward deflection. Mickey snorts at him and turns to walk away, nodding at Eric to signal that he’s ready to leave and falling into step with him when he starts walking.

”Hey Milkovich,” Ian calls out behind them and Mickey doesn’t stop walking when he turns around to look back at him, carefully stepping backwards to still keep up with Eric’s leisured pace.

”Yeah?”

Ian’s happy smile is lighting up the whole fucking street and there’s something incredibly familiar about the way he leans his weight on one foot, hands rubbing together in front of him to stave off the cold, adding to his careful stance and clashing with his confident tone. 

”You still owe me that kiss,” he announces, for the whole street to hear, grin from ear to ear when Mickey barks out a laugh.

”You wish!” he shouts and gives him the finger, holding it up high and firm even as he turns around, twisting his arm as far back as he can to make sure Ian gets the message. Judging by the way he laughs, he does.

Mickey huffs and drops his arm, not looking at Eric as he shoves his hands down his pockets and they pick up their pace just a little. He can feel Eric’s heavy gaze on the side of his face, but when he glances over at him he can see him smiling gently. Then he hums and bumps into Mickey when he steps a little closer, resting an arm heavily over his shoulders.

It’s nice, Mickey likes being weighted down like that. Usually it’s in bed, someone big and hard on his back, but it works like this too. Reminding him of the good thing he’s got going with this guy, who isn’t acting like some jealous bitch about bumping into Ian, who’s looking at Mickey now like he’s only getting more and more interesting by the minute.

”So,” he says after they’ve been walking in silence for a while, letting go of Mickey’s shoulders and grinning when Mickey glares at him, ”you gonna tell me or do I have to ask?”

Mickey shrugs and frowns to cover up the smile tugging at his lips. ”Might’ve hooked up once.”

”Yeah?” Eric sounds more interested than anything, maybe because Mickey never talks about the guys, or girls, he’s been with before him.

”Yeah,” Mickey echoes, and now he’s just plain fucking smiling, memories suddenly flooding back. _I want the gun back, Mickey._ Shit Mickey hasn’t thought about in years suddenly pushing back in, in full color. Shit he’s been repressing, for good reason, flashing through his mind like some kinda bogus movie montage. ”Kinda told him I’d cut his tongue out if he tried to kiss me.”

”Really?” Eric looks a little shocked, but not terribly surprised, when Mickey tilts his head to the side and winces in admittance.

”Yeah, and that put an effective end to it, I guess,” he says, ”never really talked to him again after that.”

Eric glances over his shoulder like he expects to still see Ian in the distance, even though they’re several blocks away already. ”I’m surprised he was so cool about it.”

”’m not,” Mickey says and he really isn’t. Because Ian’s the kid that came into Mickey’s bedroom with a tire iron and fucking murder on his mind, and without blinking or complaining did a full one eighty when Mickey started taking off his clothes, getting on his knees and giving him an eager helping hand instead of taking the opportunity to bring Mickey down. This is the kid who never even seemed to consider outing Mickey afterwards, even when Mickey refused his more tender advances and then threatened him, and then ignored him.

This is Ian, Ian Gallagher. Who flipped Mickey’s whole life around when he flipped him on his stomach and pushed inside him, somehow knowing what Mickey wanted before Mickey even knew it himself. It’s Ian, who Mickey basically stalked for a month, smoking cigarette after cigarette standing on the street across from the Kash and Grab, casing the place like he was planning to rob them blind, but really just racking up the nerve to go in and make a move. Too chickenshit to go through with it, every damned time.

They stop outside Eric’s building and Mickey kinda freezes in his track when he hears the lock click and the door open, and Eric turns back to look at him expectantly.

”I gotta go,” Mickey says, and can feel himself mirroring Eric’s confused frown, ”I’m sorry, I gotta go.”

”What?” Eric asks, understandably baffled by this turn of events. He steps towards Mickey and lets the door slam shut behind him again.

”Ian,” Mickey says, like the name is a curse and an explanation all at once, ”he used to scare the shit out of me, man, the things he stirred up in me, just being around… I _wanted_ to kiss him, I wanted to-, I don’t know, since that one time I think I’ve kinda wanted everything with him. Every time I’d think, hey, _I want this_ , for a split second I always wanted it with him first, you know?”

He takes a step back and rubs at his bottom lip, looking everywhere but at Eric. He knows he’s rambling, but it’s all just falling outta him like somewhere, someone’s pulled a plug on all these pent up _feelings_. And it’s no fucking secret whose hand’s on the chain, yanking it out like there’s no tomorrow.

”Maybe it’s all in my head,” he says, nodding to himself and finally looking back up at Eric’s blank face, wincing when he can’t tell if he’s gonna get punched or not, ”but I gotta try, I gotta do something… I gotta go back and kiss the asshole, don’t I?”

”I’d try kissing his mouth first,” Eric suggests and relief washes over Mickey at his dry, but kind, tone.

”Shit,” Mickey laughs nervously, and then shoots Eric an apologetic look, ”shit man, I’m sorry. I’m an ass for doin’ this to you.”

”It’s okay,” Eric assures him, ”we tried, and it was nice. But look at you all romantic all of a sudden, who knew you had it in you, huh?”

”Fuck off,” Mickey tries to shut him up, but the way he’s grinning like crazy probably undercuts the aggression a little.

”Would I be the biggest jackass ever if I asked for a quick break-up BJ before you leave?” Eric asks, tone cheeky and not really all that hopeful.

”And look at you,” Mickey laughs, gesturing towards his bashfully smiling, recently exed, almost boyfriend, ”trying to be a dick, who knew you had it in ya?”

Eric shrugs and when Mickey takes a step back it’s the first time he’s actually looking a little sad about the night’s sudden turn.

”You know that guy Brandon?” Mickey asks, slowly walking backwards. ”You should give him a call.”

It’s almost endearing how clueless Eric is about this stuff, sometimes. Mickey thinks for a split second that it somehow reminds him of Ian, and he wonders how often he’s fucked someone, tried to be with someone, smiled at someone, because they reminded him just a little bit of Ian. This stupid, fixed idea of a guy who might not be anything like Mickey remembers him.

But might also be just like him.

”Call him,” Mickey says and rolls his eyes when Eric looks like he won’t, shaking his head and his lips curling up in doubt, ”I’ve listened to you bitch about this guy acting like a fool around you for months, Eric, he’s acting that way ’cause he wants to sit on your face, trust me.”

Eric huffs out a laugh and shakes his head again. ”You’re so full of shit, Mickey.”

”Call him,” Mickey repeats as he finally turns around, ”and thank me later!”

Eric doesn’t say anything, but Mickey can hear the heavy door opening and closing again behind him as he picks up his steps. He’s really doing this, he’s about to go back to that bar and-, what? Maybe he should slow down, reign it in a little. Just because Ian did some light flirting, when he knew that Mickey was taken and that it wouldn’t lead anywhere, doesn’t mean he’s gonna appreciate Mickey showing up and doing something dumb in an effort to sweep him off his feet, or whatever. Ian might not even still be at the bar, he might have gone home. And Mickey’s the biggest moron alive because he didn’t get his number, he didn’t ask where he lives, where he works, what he does. This is very likely his only chance with this guy that’s been haunting him for years, and he might have screwed it up already.

Before he knows it, he’s fucking running, flying down the street and dodging cars and bar-crawlers and couples walking home, hand in hand, until he’s back at the bar and through the door, pulling it open like a maniac and busting inside, attracting the attention of the whole fucking place. He stills and sweeps his eyes over all the faces turned to stare at him and he holds his hands up in an attempt to placate the suspicious glare from the bartender, most likely thinking he’s there to start trouble. 

At first he doesn’t see him, he’s not at the bar and he’s not at any of the tables, he’s not among the gallery of faces looking him over, one by one turning back to their own business when Mickey doesn’t do anything interesting. Mickey licks the corner of his lips nervously and looks around the room again, thinking he’s too late.

But then there he is, the back of his neck and the broad expanse of his shoulders popping up like a jack-in-a-box behind the back row of booths, by the pool table. He looks like he just made a shot, the pool cue in his hand and his head tipping back in disappointment at the result of his efforts. He steps back a little and his posture is calm and relaxed as he watches one of his friends make the next shot. He rolls his shoulders and he brings up his hand to rub at the back of his neck, and he looks nothing like how Mickey remembers him. What the fuck is he doing? Ian’s been this symbol of everything Mickey’s ever wanted but never thought he could have, and here he is.

And he’s no longer a symbol, but real and here and _different_. But Mickey is different too, and he feels fucking _ready_.

”Hey Gallagher,” he calls out, but the only reaction he gets is from a few of the people that had looked up when he first came in, ”Ian!”

That does it. Ian stands up straighter and looks around for a second before he turns and his searching eyes find Mickey across the room. His eyebrows fly up and his mouth falls open, but he doesn’t move or say anything. Mickey doesn’t really care, because he’s already walking, faster, and before he knows it he’s close enough to reach out and grab Ian by the front of his flannel and pull their bodies together. The whole time he’s had his sights set firmly on the surprised O of Ian’s lips but feeling his warm breath against his face, Mickey hesitates with about an inch or two between them and he thinks it’s probably a dumb idea but he shifts his gaze up just a little and finds himself staring into Ian’s wide eyes, and he’s searching them for any kind of sign that he’s made a mistake.

But Ian just stares back at him, breath hitching, and then he tilts his head ever so slightly to the side and Mickey decides to take that as permission, pushing himself forward and clutching at the fabric of Ian’s shirt to pull him down a little. He closes his eyes over the feeling of Ian’s warm lips, pressing onto his and immediately parting to fit against him, closer, sound and thought falling away into an incoherent background buzz with the way Ian’s nose is pushing into his cheek and the way Mickey imagines he can feel the quickening beat of his heart through the fist of his hand, releasing Ian’s shirt to unclench and flatten against his chest, chasing the dull beat and leaving the field open to step even closer.

Mickey’s only vaguely aware of the clattering sound of Ian’s pool cue falling to the floor, and then hyper fucking aware of the hands grabbing at his sides, finally bringing their bodies flush together, and then circling Mickey’s middle entirely, holding him close like a vise. It kinda pushes a whole set of Mickey’s buttons and causes him to emit a really embarrassing sound. He tries to hide it, or at least distract from it, by dropping his jaw a little and tentatively push his tongue forward, against Ian’s bottom lip and then past it when Ian opens up for him. He forgets all about being embarrassed when he feels the corner of Ian’s mouth quirk up in a pleased, helpless smile, and Mickey lets his hands run free, trailing up Ian’s chest and neck to cradle his head and keep him close, one thumb running along his sharp chin and the fingers of his other hand digging greedily into his soft hair.

And Mickey really isn’t much for public displays of anything, but the way this fucking kiss is going he probably could have spent the rest of the night in that spot, sucking face with Ian until they got kicked out, or arrested, or reported to Guinness because let’s face it, they would be breaking some kinda record. Ian seems to be much of the same mind, because he kinda sighs into the kiss and squeezes himself closer, clutching at the back of Mickey’s shirt, probably wrinkling it beyond recognition, and Mickey can practically feel the soft, warm skin of his stomach through the abundant layers of clothes trembling with excitement, nothing left a secret between them when Ian’s hips dig in right above Mickey’s and the buckles of their belts catch.

But then Ian’s lips fall away, and for a second they’re just breathing the same air as Mickey scrambles to catch up with what’s happening and Ian rests their foreheads together, briefly, before he sucks in a quick breath and takes a step back, Mickey swaying slightly with the sudden loss of his physical support.

”Um,” Ian says and looks at his friends, standing around the pool table and staring at them in various states of disbelief and amusement. Mickey clears his throat and studies his feet, folding his arms over his chest to keep from reaching out and pulling Ian back in when Ian angles himself away and then takes another step back.

Mickey only glances up at him when Ian suddenly walks over to the pool table, frowning a little as he watches him pick up a nearly full glass of something and start drinking from it like he tries to down the whole pint in one go. Then he abruptly stops and holds it out in front of himself, like he can’t believe there’s still so much it left, before he looks up and zones in on one of his friends, and holds out the glass for him to take.

”What?” The guy looks confused but still takes the glass from Ian’s outstretched hand, eyebrows shooting up when Ian takes out his wallet and carelessly pulls out a bunch of notes, tossing them down on the pool table. Then he pockets his wallet again and walks over to the row of hooks on the wall to grab his coat, quickly pulling it on while he’s walking back.

”I fold,” he tells the baffled group of guys around the pool table, ”see you Monday.”

”Ian,” the guy still holding Ian’s glass is the first to recover enough to say anything, ”I don’t wanna drink your girly fucking cider, man.”

Ian doesn’t seem to hear his weak complaint, he just turns to Mickey and bodily ushers him into movement, Mickey catching on to what’s happening a little too slow and ends up being more or less pushed forward for a couple of steps, Ian behind him with his hands gripping at his shoulders, guiding him through the room and towards the door.

Mickey snaps out of it about halfway there and shrugs Ian’s hands off, glancing quickly over his shoulder before picking up his pace and marching out of the bar, Ian stalking after him. The second they step outside Mickey feels something pull at the back of his coat and when he turns to look at Ian he finds himself instantly walked backwards and pushed up against the building.

Ian wastes no time covering him completely, hands against the brick on either side of Mickey’s arms that instinctively reach out to grab Ian by the waist and pull him closer. Ian’s lips twist into a smug smile, like he’s won something, but it slips away just as quickly as he closes his eyes and falls forward, slotting their faces back together.

And it’s even better now, heat flaring up between them the moment they touch, a whole different kinda urgency thrumming through Mickey and just as obvious in the slow, insistent roll of Ian’s hips and the soft push of his tongue.

It takes every ounce of willpower Mickey can muster, but he puts a hand to Ian’s chest and firmly pries them apart. Ian looks confused when he stumbles back a little, but not upset, and then unmistakably relieved when Mickey steps with him, caught up in his presence and grasping on to his coat to make sure he won’t go too far away.

”My place is close,” he says, staring into Ian’s blown out eyes and most likely mirroring his dopey smile.

Ian takes half a step back in, reducing the distance between their noses right back to a comfortable couple of inches. ”What about Eric?”

”Broke up,” Mickey mutters and sways forward, scowling when Ian moves just out of his reach and that dumb, wonderful smile slips away.

Ian makes a slightly distressed sound, and he looks conflicted when Mickey pulls back a little to get a better view of his whole face.

”Never really all that together,” Mickey is quick to explain, ”it’s fine.”

”Yeah?” Ian still sounds unsure, but then he smiles fondly at Mickey’s annoyed frown and he leans back in just that little bit closer. ”How close is close?”

”Five minutes,” Mickey grins, picking up his eyebrows in challenge, ”that close enough for you, princess?”

”Nope,” Ian insists and underlines his answer by grabbing his arms around Mickey and pressing them together a little more firmly, Mickey biting his lip to keep from flat out moaning in the guy’s gorgeous fucking face. 

A shrill laugh from down the street cuts through their bubble and instinctively they break apart, Ian taking a couple of steps back and rubbing awkwardly at his neck, peering back up at Mickey to lock eyes with him as a group of tipsy women round the corner and walk past them. Mickey leans back against the brick wall behind him and meets Ian’s blatantly lust-filled eyes head on, holds his gaze, and most probably matches it too. When the shrieking gaggle of ladies have all passed them and made their way down the street, Mickey pushes off the wall, not breaking eye contact for a second as they slowly start walking, side by side. After a few uncertain steps Mickey snorts and tears his eyes off Ian’s face in order to look where he’s going, ’cause it would be just his luck if he walked straight into traffic and got hit by a fucking car or something, at this point.

He doesn’t, and they make it to Mickey’s building without injury or trouble, their shoulders brushing from time to time and neither feeling the need to fill the companionable silence with small talk, knowing that they’ll have time to catch up later. 

They ride the elevator in silence, leaning against opposite walls and eyes firmly on each other when one of Mickey’s neighbors steps in with them from the lobby. And they still say nothing when they walk through the corridor and Mickey unlocks his door, swinging it open for Ian to walk in first. He closes the door behind them and turns on the light.

Ian hesitantly walks further into the small apartment, past the closed door to Yevgeny’s room and through the hallway to the living room. Mickey locks the door and secures the chain, before he drops the keys into the bowl on the small dresser next to the coat rack. He kicks off his shoes and stows away his coat before he follows after Ian.

He finds him in the living room, standing by one of the windows and looking out over the dark, blinking cityscape. Mickey doesn’t join him, he just walks through the room towards his bedroom, smirking a little when Ian turns around at the sound of his steps.

”Enjoy the view later, Gallagher,” he says as he disappears into his room, turning on the bedside lamp and taking off his watch.

”Straight to business,” Ian comments from the door, causing Mickey to turn and raise an eyebrow at him.

”You complaining?” he challenges, smirking when Ian shakes his head and walks into the room. He takes off his coat and throws it over on the chair in the corner and quickly toes off his shoes, shoving them to the side with his foot before he walks over to Mickey and stops in front of him.

”You good to go?” he asks, like a fucking dork, eyes traveling down Mickey’s chest and back up to meet his eyes. Mickey chews at his lip over a wide smile when Ian doesn’t wait for an answer before he reaches out and grabs him by the waist, pulling him in.

”You worry about yourself, tough guy,” Mickey teases, even though he thinks it’s really fucking sweet of Ian to ask, ”I’m good.”

”Good,” Ian repeats and it’s almost like he planned it that way when Mickey lunges forward to kiss him, just to shut him up. But mostly to breathe him in, and to feel his firm lips working against his own again, wet and pliant as they open and they sink together, Ian’s hands immediately pulling at Mickey’s shirt to release it from his pants.

Their frantic kiss turns a little awkward when Ian steps back some to fumble with his big hands over Mickey’s buttons. Mickey breaks away from him and swats at his hands, convinced that Ian isn’t above ripping it open and sending buttons flying across the room if he got frustrated enough. It’s Mickey’s favorite shirt, and anyway he’ll probably get it off faster if he does it himself. Ian just grins at Mickey’s no-nonsense eagerness and starts cringing off his own flannel before he grips the hem of his t-shirt to pull it over his head. Throwing his shirt aside, Mickey steps in and helps, blindly tossing Ian’s t-shirt the way of his own when Ian’s face reappears and they find themselves once more stuck together at the mouth.

Getting their belts open and pants off is a less graceful affair, but they’re enthusiastic, and quick, and by the time they’re butt naked and they land on Mickey’s bed, Mickey feels like his face might burst from the way he can’t stop smiling at the sight of Ian’s pale, taut body and matching ecstatic grin.

”C’mon,” Mickey urges, pointlessly, and disentangles himself from Ian’s limbs and lips to crawl across the bed on his knees, getting into the bedside table and pulling out lube and condoms, throwing them down on the bed behind him as he settles in by the headboard, gripping on to it and shoving his ass out towards Ian.

And Ian works him open, commendably quickly, and then Mickey’s being held down on the bed, a firm hand spread wide on his lower back and another sunk into the softness of his left ass cheek, pushing it to the side as Ian slowly shoves himself inside with increasingly deep thrusts. 

”Holy fuck, Ian,” he pants out and clutches one of his pillows to his chest, pulling up his right knee to almost connect with his elbow in an effort to somehow spread himself wider. It disrupts Ian’s steady rhythm for a second, but then he shifts his stance a little, straddling Mickey’s other leg and letting go of Mickey’s ass fat to put one hand down on the mattress for support, and suddenly he’s sinking in even deeper and sending currents of pleasure through Mickey’s whole body. ”There, right there, _fuck_.”

Clearly encouraged by that, Ian snaps his hips faster, his sharp pelvic bone digging into Mickey’s ass and their skin sticking together with every thrust, the sound of their connecting bodies joining the squeaking of the bed and filling the quiet room, accompanying their increasingly labored breathing and their low, helpless moaning.

Then Ian falls to his elbow and hunches down over Mickey, the hand on the small of his back moving up and gripping on to his shoulder as Ian lets his whole weight down over Mickey’s side, rolling his hips in small, lazy thrusts while he drags his lips over Mickey’s shoulder and neck, kissing and tasting his way up the side of his face. Mickey bucks his hips to meet his movements in an effort to speed things up again, but he doesn’t complain. Instead he turns his face to meet Ian half way, twisting his upper body as much as he can without compromising their connection, his mouth falling open the second he feels Ian’s lips pressing against his, lazy and wet when he pushes his tongue inside in tandem with Ian’s slow thrusts.

It feels amazing, slowing down and taking their time, lips glued together with saliva and muffled moans, but it teases Mickey’s itch more than it scratches it and it’s slowly driving him crazy.

”Switch,” he mumbles against Ian’s lips, wincing when Ian breaks the kiss to pick himself up and pull out, before he more or less melts back down and connects their lips again with a soft noise. Mickey mutters incoherently into it but isn’t really sure himself what he’s trying to say. So he gives up on trying and instead wiggles himself around under Ian’s weight until he’s on his back, boxing in Ian’s hips with his thighs and bending his knees.

”Fuck,” Mickey sighs when Ian sinks back in, the new angle different but not nearly as good or deep as before, ”Ian, Jesus-, stop fucking around, come on.”

Ian huffs out a laugh, breath hitching when Mickey plants his feet down and pushes his ass up, their noses bumping when he suddenly nods eagerly. 

”Yeah,” he says, voice low, and leaves one lingering, almost chaste kiss on Mickey’s lips before he heaves himself up and sits back on his heels. He snaps his hips forward, like he’s testing it out, and seems very pleased with the result when Mickey’s back arches off the bed in pleasure.

”Okay?” he asks, and waits for Mickey’s eager nod before he hooks his elbows around the back of Mickey’s thighs and holds him still, and then launches himself inside, again, and again, setting a steady, fast rhythm of hard thrusts that narrow Mickey’s whole world down to just the two of them and all the little areas they connect; Ian’s fingers digging into his thighs, his calves, Ian’s hips bouncing on his ass, Ian’s eyes trained on his face whenever Mickey’s able to blink up at him and meet his heavy gaze.

”Fuck, fuck, right there,” Mickey manages to gasp before he’s throwing his head back and screwing his eyes shut, and he’s not sure if Ian’s got his hand on his cock or not but it doesn’t matter, he’s drilling into him like it’s his fucking mission in life, and Mickey’s coming, hard, all over his stomach.

”Keep going,” Mickey croaks when Ian slows down and hesitates like he’s about to pull out. Mickey grabs at his hip and pulls him in deep, digs his fingers into his flexing ass as Ian folds him over like pliant dough and starts driving into him again, a little frantic now when he’s chasing his own release. Just when it’s almost getting too much for Mickey’s increasingly sensitive body to handle, Ian stutters and groans, shoving inside a couple more times before he eventually, slowly, pulls out.

Mickey moves out of the way a little when Ian scrambles over him and slumps down next to him. He feels his face smiling this really dumb, happy smile, but he can’t stop it when he looks over at Ian who’s smiling right back at him, chest still heaving after his champion effort.

”What the fuck kept you?” Ian mutters nonsensically at the ceiling, before he grins quickly at Mickey again and reaches down to slap him lightly on the side of his ass. 

”Fuck off,” Mickey shoots back instinctively, thinking Ian can tell he’s just joking and freaking out slightly when Ian abruptly moves to get off the bed, ”where are you going?”

”Bathroom,” Ian huffs, but walks over to his discarded coat first to rifle through the pile of fabric until he finds a zipped up pocket and pulls out something that sounds a lot like pills in a plastic bottle.

Mickey watches him move through the room and out the door, head only falling back down on his pillow when Ian’s retreating back disappears out of sight.

”To your left,” he calls out to the ceiling, just in case Ian finds his small apartment confusing.

Ian’s gone for maybe five minutes, and when he returns it’s with a big cheesy grin and a damp washcloth which he drops down on Mickey’s chest before he stretches back out on the bed next to him.

”Thanks,” Mickey drawls and lazily starts wiping off his already drying come, ”where did you toss the rubber?”

”Bin in the bathroom,” Ian replies easily, crossing his ankles and folding his arms behind his head, ”why?”

”Kid,” Mickey says, without thinking, as he throws the soiled damp rag on the floor and then turns to look at Ian, who’s staring back at him.

”What?”

”I’ve got a kid,” Mickey clarifies and tries to keep the defensive edge that immediately wants to creep in, out of his voice, ”I never bring guys home, ’cause I know they’re not gonna stick around and I don’t want him to meet them, but-, I don’t know. Rather not explain cum-filled condoms to him just yet, if I can avoid it.”

”You brought me home,” Ian’s voice is low, and he’s on his side and frowning when Mickey glances at him, ”you don’t even know me.”

Mickey huffs, because like shit he doesn’t know Ian. Ian might think he doesn’t know him, but he does. Down to his fucking bones. It’s a stupid, senseless conviction he’s got, and he isn’t about to share it.

”Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he says instead, fixing his gaze on the shapes of shadows on his ceiling.

He can feel the pillows moving with Ian’s slow nod, and his voice is a little lighter when he moves on. ”What’s his name?”

Mickey quirks a small smile, he used to hate this part but now he kinda loves it. ”Yevgeny.”

”Yev- what?” Ian laughs.

”Yevgeny,” Mickey repeats and turns his head to look at Ian again, smiling at his amused confusion, ”Yev.”

”Yev,” Ian confirms, and Mickey turns his eyes back on the ceiling, ”how old?”

”Four,” Mickey nods slightly, making a quick decision to not hide any of his baggage, because if Ian’s gonna be chased away better he does it now before Mickey gets any dumb ideas, ”four and a half, almost. I mostly banged girls, before and after you… I was really fucking terrified, of everything, my dad, you, of myself. I’m really fucking sorry about that.”

”Don’t apologize,” Ian mumbles, and he carefully trails a hand up Mickey’s chest, letting it rest right over his heart, ”sorry I didn’t try to help you or anything, I should’ve known you had a rough time in that house.”

”Fuck off,” Mickey mutters and places his hand over Ian’s, just in case he’d get any stupid ideas about moving it, ”nothing you could’ve done, it was the way it was. I thought admitting I was gay would get me killed, by Terry or by fucking lightning bolts from the sky, or whatever. I’d have beat your ass if you’d tried to help me back then.”

Ian sighs, a puff of warm air fanning over Mickey’s neck and shoulder.

”Just got sick of it, in the end,” Mickey says with a shrug, still feeling Ian’s breath like a tickle in his skin, ”and when my dad noticed that I wasn’t bragging about pussy anymore, he got me a hooker and pretty much locked me in a room with her until he was sure I’d banged her a couple of times.”

”Jesus, Mick,” Ian breathes out and Mickey doesn’t want to look at him and see the disgust, or the sadness, or the pity he’s come to expect whenever he dares to open up about his past, ”thank fuck that dickbag’s dead.”

Mickey huffs and closes his eyes when he feels the bed dip next to him, forcing himself not to clutch on to Ian’s hand just to keep him around a little longer. But then he feels Ian’s lips pressing gently into his skin, right above his eyebrow, and then the bed moves again when Ian settles back down, just a little bit closer this time.

”Figures she got fucking knocked up,” Mickey continues, swallowing over the dryness in his throat and ignoring the flutter in his gut, ”so we got married and had a baby, and I got to kinda figure myself out in peace for once, you know? Guess Pops thought it was a done deal once I got hitched, and got off my back about a lotta shit he’d always been down on me for.”

”He died three years ago, right?” Ian asks, his thumb absently moving over the slight unevenness of Mickey’s ribs.

”Right, drug bust gone south,” Mickey nods, ”Terry started shooting and five-o gunned him down. Svet was workin’ and I was out with the baby, came home to the house looking like Swiss cheese.”

Ian doesn’t say anything and when Mickey dips his head to the side to face him he’s just silently looking back, eyes big and face unreadable.

”What were you doing?” Mickey asks. ”What where you doing when I was busy fucking up my life?”

”Drugs,” Ian answers bluntly, a regretful tilt to his lips, ”and dudes.”

Mickey holds his gaze for a second and then turns back to the ceiling. ”Sounds alright.”

”Yeah,” Ian hums, ”enlisted the day I turned eighteen, ’cause West Point’d been a bust and everything else kinda went to shit at home, and it just seemed like a good idea. Turns out I was skyrocketing towards my first manic episode and after a couple of weeks in basic I flipped and tired to steal a helicopter, deserting to go dance at a club in Boystown, sucking dick for petty cash and drugs.”

”You’re okay now though, right?” Mickey feels like it’s maybe the wrong thing to ask, but can’t find any way around it.

”Decent,” Ian sighs, but he doesn’t sound annoyed with the question, ”stable enough, got work and a place and I’m not being such a stubborn ass about it anymore, mostly.”

”Good,” Mickey says and absently moves his hand over Ian’s, stroking it lightly, ”that’s good.”

Ian says nothing and they let the silence linger for a little bit, listening to the midnight traffic down on the street outside, muffled by the closed windows.

”What,” Mickey says and then has to awkwardly clear his throat, his voice suddenly sounding kinda weird in silent room, ”what do you do, now?”

”IT support.”

”Shit, really?” Mickey doesn’t know why that is so surprising to him, but it is. Maybe because he recalls Ian really kinda struggling with math in school, enough for even Mandy to be useful to him when they studied together. Ian lets out a low chuckle, maybe Mickey isn’t the first to have that reaction.

”Yeah, really,” he says, ”got into computers in school and met some great people once I cleaned up my act and got out of the club scene. IT support is really easy most of the time, it’s just a job. I code and do more exciting stuff on my free time.”

”IT support,” Mickey repeats, like he still can’t believe it, ”I mean, I work custodial and all I do is fix people’s stupid mistakes, but I still don’t envy the IT guys. Are you on call or stuck in one of those callcenters?”

”Callcenter,” Ian confirms, nodding when Mickey groans, ”all day, hello sir, no, the modem is supposed to sound that way, good morning ma’am, have you tried turning it off and on again?”

”Jesus,” Mickey laughs, a little desperately, ”you really have to tell people to turn their computers off and on again? Isn’t that like the first thing you try, shouldn’t that go without fucking saying?”

Ian lets out a nothing short of pornographic moan, the likes of which he didn’t even come close to emitting when he was balls deep in Mickey’s fine ass not fifteen minutes earlier, and suddenly he’s on top of Mickey, weighting him down and filling up his whole world.

”Marry me,” he jokes passionately, ”have my children.”

Mickey laughs and shoves at him to get off, struggling a little when Ian only clings to him harder, and they’re both laughing helplessly when Mickey finally manages to push him away and back to his side of the bed. Ian flops back down next to him and settles in, in the exact position he had been before.

”You’re ridiculous,” Mickey mutters at the ceiling, but the insult is lost in his disgustingly fond tone. For a moment all that can be heard is the sound of their breathing calming down, and the dull thuds of Mickey’s heart, reverberating through Ian’s hand. 

”How are you real?” Ian whispers, almost too low for Mickey to hear. ”How are you here?”

”Hey,” Mickey says and slaps at Ian’s hand, trying to disperse of the slightly uneasy feeling pooling in his gut, ”tell me more about this puppy crush you got on my sweet ass, man.”

Ian barks out a startled laugh and Mickey can’t help glancing at him, basking in his wide smile for a second.

”Fuck you,” Ian says and shoves at his chest, but doesn’t try to remove his hand, ”I was cool, didn’t throw myself at you once. Not even that one time when you walked around your house in your fucking boxers for a whole day and I was cooped up with Mandy in her room, covertly spying on you through the crack in her door when she wasn’t paying attention.”

”Yeah, you were real cool,” Mickey agrees drily, tracing along Ian’s long fingers, one by one, ”dopiest kid I ever met.”

And super easily goaded, ’cause the dork shifts closer just so he can roll his hips against the side of Mickey’s thigh. ”Didn’t hear any complaints seven years ago, or fifteen minutes ago.”

Mickey chuckles and squirms a little, not entirely comfortable with being so close unless Ian has the intention of it leading somewhere, soon. But then Ian tangles their legs and fits himself all along Mickey’s side, resting his head right next to Mickey’s on the pillow, steady warm breaths flowing over the side of Mickey’s neck, and it’s nice. Ian is calm and firm, and being close to him turns out to be really easy, same as everything else seems to be with him.

”I was gonna come see you,” Mickey says, almost startling himself with the admittance, ”after we hooked up? I was loitering outside the store for weeks, I wanted to do it again.”

He doesn’t know what kinda reaction he expects to get, but a bone deep sense of calm washes over him when he feels Ian smiling against his neck.

”Did you have a line?” he asks, voice pleased and teasing.

”Excuse you?” Mickey tries to sound offended. ”’Course I had a line, woulda worked fucking magic too, had I thought you were worth the trouble.”

”Try me,” Ian goads, ”tell me.”

Mickey sighs and closes his eyes, then without warning he springs up and flips them around, grabbing Ian by the wrists and pinning him down on the bed.

”You got any Slim Jims in this shithole?” he growls before he loses his nerve, and the way Ian laughs makes the whole thing so fucking worth it. He eases up on his grip but still holds Ian down as he settles his weight more firmly on top of him, fitting a leg between Ian’s and shivering a little when Ian bends his free knee, the inside of his thigh grazing along the side of Mickey’s hips. Ian looks like he’s just waiting for the right moment to surge up and kiss him, but for some reason seems to decide against it.

”See me again,” he says, voice confident but small, ”dinner, tomorrow.”

Mickey bites his lip and slowly rakes his eyes over Ian’s face, from his big eyes to his nervous smirk and back again, dragging out his response.

”How about breakfast,” he suggests, more like a statement, and now Ian goes for it, almost knocking Mickey off balance when he heaves up and crashes their lips together. It starts off hard and urgent, but it quickly turns into something else, something kinda aimless and fucking tender.

”Breakfast,” Ian agrees between soft, lazy pecks, and lets Mickey push him back down into the pillow.

 

 

.


	2. February 26, 1999

February 26, 1999

 

Ian is maybe ten minutes late and Mickey is loving it, because this time _he_ was the one getting to the place five minutes early and Ian’s making _him_ stand around in the cold like some sucker. Oh, Mickey’s gonna enjoy this one, he’s gonna milk it for all it’s worth, from Ian paying for extra dessert and all the way to foot rubs and fucking rim jobs. And while the latter isn’t in short supply on days when Mickey _isn’t_ morally superior, he’s sure gonna act like it is. He’s gonna boss his boyfriend around like a goddamned king and Ian’s gonna look at him with that special kinda expression he has when he thinks Mickey’s being an idiot, and it’s gonna be great.

Ian is twenty-five minutes late and he’s a jackass, because he’s turned off his cellphone. Mickey calls him once, twice, and then again for good measure, before he bites out a curse, tosses his third cigarette to the curb, and goes inside the restaurant. It’s kind of a dive and it’s not like they’ve made a reservation or anything, he can wait, and he takes to the bar so he can put his waiting time to good use with a drink or two. Sitting down on one of the high stools he orders himself a beer and figures that Ian can find him whenever he decides to show up. No big deal.

Ian is forty minutes late when Mickey finishes his first beer, and at this point he’s just pissed. He takes out his cellphone and tries Ian’s landline this time, and is immediately greeted by his answering machine.

_”You’ve reached Ian Gallagher, leave a message.”_

”Fuck,” Mickey mutters over the shrill beep, ”ey, Gallagher, get your fucking ass here now or I’ma get a nice little table all to myself, candle and napkins and everything, and then I’ma get the most expensive thing off the menu, and you know it’s gonna be steak and you know l’ma have ’em make it so rare it’s gonna scream when I bite it, and then, then I’m gonna go home and sit on one of my rubber dicks, and you know I got at least two that got your nine inches beat, buddy, so you know I’m gonna have a real good time doin’ it.”

He glares at the lady to his left when she lets out a stifled, affronted noise. ”You’ve got ten minutes, tick fuckin’ tock Alice.”

Ignoring the lady, who’s been doing a really good job matching his nasty glare, he slides the cellphone shut and leaves it next to his empty beer glass as he tries to get the bartender’s attention.

”Another one?” he asks when he does, picking up the empty glass and putting it back down when the bartender nods at him and starts pouring one from the tap. He can feel the lady still glaring a big hole in the side of his face even as she gets up and walks past him. 

”Yeah, okay lady, have a great night,” he says and raises a hand in a small wave when she walks away, ”I’m feelin’ real sorry for that stick up your ass, what an awful existence that gotta be.”

He turns back to the bar in time to see a fresh pint being placed in front of him.

”Thanks.”

The bartender takes his empty glass and his money and leaves Mickey alone again, drinking his beer in silence. Ian has never been late before, a couple of minutes here and there maybe, but more than ten and he’d always call and make sure Mickey knew. He tries to think of when he talked to Ian last, and it’s with a slowly building sense of dread that he realizes it’s been days. He didn’t stay the night on Friday, and then the whole weekend got tied up in different shit, derailing their vague plans to get together. They talked on the phone Sunday night, going through the week and regretfully realizing that between work and different family obligations, they wouldn’t have any chance for quality time together until the next Friday evening. Which is why they decided on going out and doing the whole elaborate date thing, ’cause they knew they’d never leave Mickey’s bed if they didn’t make some kinda effort. Not that that would’ve been _bad_ , but people gotta eat, too.

And they haven’t talked since. That’s five days. It’s not that long and normally Mickey wouldn’t worry, but normally Ian would end up calling him after a few days just to catch up, even if it’s only to say goodnight or do some mildly obscene flirting. This time he hasn’t heard from Ian at all, and suddenly five days feels like a whole fucking _lot_. Many horrible things can happen in five days and trying very hard to not think about what those horrible things could be, Mickey is no longer even a little pleased, or pissed, he’s fucking worried.

He downs the last of his second beer and checks his watch. Hour, fifteen. Where the hell is Ian?

”Hey.”

Mickey could kick himself for the way his breath catches, thinking the voice belongs to Ian even though it sounds nothing like him. The tiny, stupid, shiver of hope is completely washed away on a wave of crushing disappointment when he frowns at the guy sidling up next to him.

”You know, rubber substitutes are good and all,” the guy says, leaning an elbow on the bar and facing Mickey with his whole body, ”but nothing compares to the real thing.”

”Whatever,” Mickey dismisses the guy in a mutter, the blatant flirting barely even registering, and looks at his watch again. An hour and sixteen minutes.

”Just saying,” and the guy is still fucking talking, ”if you’re looking for something to sit on…”

Mickey turns on his stool so he can get all up in the guy’s space and pick up his eyebrows in what he’d like to think is answer enough, lips pressed together. Apparently not.

”Bet I’ve got just what you need,” dude says, his confidence only wavering on the last word, the statement coming out more like a question with his nervously upturned inflection.

”You wanna fuckin’ die?” Mickey asks, hand gripping his empty beer glass tighter, like he might actually fuck the guy up if he makes another awkward pass at him. But the guy just shakes his head, eyes wide, and sidles away again. Mickey loosens his grip on the glass and turns back to the bar, staring down at his cellphone.

He checks his watch again and then gives Ian’s landline another try.

_”You’ve reached Ian Gallagher, leave a message.”_

”Ian,” Mickey says, as soon as the beep dies out, ”come on, man. Pick the fuck up. I’ve been here for an hour and a half already, waiting and calling you like some bitch, just pick up the fucking phone and call me back. I’m worried about you.”

Mickey sucks in a shallow breath and he _knows_ what’s going to fall out of him next, but it’s like he’s helpless to stop it. ”I love you.”

He sighs at himself and picks up his free hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose and then rub harshly over his left eye. ”Shit. Just call me back, asshole.”

It’s not that he isn’t feeling it, because he sure as fuck is. He’s been feeling it for weeks, going on months if he’s being honest. And while he’s being honest, he’s been feeling it since New Year’s, when they walked home from that disastrous party at Ian’s co-worker’s place and they’d made each other laugh the whole way until they’d reached Mickey’s building and Mickey’d suddenly realized he was pretty much irrevocably in love with Ian Gallagher, who’d kissed him goodnight right there on the street, big-ass snowflakes fucking dancing around them and everything.

But he hasn’t said it yet, they haven’t said it yet, and Mickey might not know a lot about love or relationships, but it feels pretty shitty to say ’I love you’ for the first time in an angry voicemail. One thing he does know is that he wanted to look at Ian when he said it, and make sure he could tell if Ian felt the same way or not.

Right now he can’t even tell if Ian’s alive or not. Jesus, when did he become so dramatic? Everything is probably fine. The bus broke down on the way from work. He forgot to charge his cellphone (he always forgets). He’s on his way, which is why he’s not at home and hasn’t heard Mickey’s stupid messages, yet. Which means he will hear them later, and Mickey’s still managed to make a hen out of a goddamned feather by turning Ian’s uncharacteristic tardiness into some kinda reason to break out in dramatic _announcements_. 

But none of that shit matters as long as Ian is okay.

Slapping the palm of his hand down on the bar he makes a quick decision, and before he has time to talk himself out of it he pockets his phone and swings his jacket back on, leaving the restaurant. He takes the bus to Ian’s, twenty-three torturous minutes of pungent BOs and listening to coked up yuppies yapping loudly on their phones. Mickey’s only been to Ian’s place a couple of times, they usually gravitate towards Mickey’s apartment since Mickey prefers to be closer to Yevgeny in case something should happen, and because he’s got more bars and restaurants in his neighborhood, anyway. But also because Ian’s apartment is a fucking shoebox and the idiot literally sleeps in this twin bed that he probably got second hand when he was like ten, just so he can make room for all his monster computers and little gadgets. 

Mickey happens to know the bed also hasn’t been replaced in over a decade because Ian is a specific blend of pragmatically cheap (and afraid to spend money because he still thinks he hasn’t got any) and comfortably lazy (’it still works, Mick, it’s a perfectly good bed’). Never mind that Ian doesn’t fit in it on his own, feet sticking out the end with several inches, but add Mickey to the mix and for sure someone’s gonna end up tumbling off the side. Ian gets him every time by saying it’s _intimate_ , clearing the word of any unnecessary heft with a salacious wiggle of his eyebrows, and then using his gangly limbs to wrap Mickey up like a burrito before he falls asleep, lazily whispering ’I got you’ into the back of his neck.

And sure it’s nice, but a decent night’s sleep on a good mattress with plenty of space is also nice, and ultimately why they usually end up at Mickey’s at the end of the night. Like they would have tonight, if Ian hadn’t decided to be an ass and flake on him. What if he’s sick? What if something’s seriously wrong?

Mickey pretty much runs the half a block from the buss stop to Ian’s building, panting a little when he presses down on the button next to the worn label saying ’402 // Gallagher, I C’. His breathing is back to normal, he has pressed the damned button another five times, and he’s thinking about how he would go about finding the number for Ian’s older sister or brother, when one of Ian’s neighbors leave the building and doesn’t seem to give a shit about Mickey catching the door and sneaking inside. He takes the stairs two at a time until he reaches the fourth floor, knocking hard on Ian’s door.

He thinks he’s been at it for a full minute, ignoring the old man down the hallway, cracking his door open to stick his head out and scowl and tut at Mickey and his ruckus, when he suddenly hears something on the other side of the door. He drops his now throbbing fist and takes a step back, trying not to look too furious when the door swings open.

Ian looks fine, he’s standing up, he’s got no external injuries. He’s not in a coma, he’s not dead. He’s standing there in his goddamned boxers, one hand lazily scratching over the white swallow tattooed on the side of his ribs.

”Mick?” he says, rubbing sleep out of his left eye before blinking over at Mickey. ”What are you doing here?”

Mickey huffs out an incredulous chuckle and lets his hands fall heavily down his sides. ”The fuck Ian? I’ve been waiting for your ass at Joe’s for two hours and that’s all you gotta say to me?”

Ian looks confused for a second and then something seems to click, his eyes widening slightly.

”It’s Friday,” he says, like it comes as a surprise, jaw tight and eyes not quite on Mickey when he nods, ”fuck… give me two seconds.”

And then he’s gone, leaving a baffled Mickey standing in the hallway and his door wide open when he disappears into the apartment. 

”Ian, what the fuck?” Mickey groans and dips his head back for a second before he looks around the hallway and then goes after him. 

Ian’s tiny apartment is a mess. It usually is; electronics and papers and clothes everywhere, dishes piled up in the sink and smelly leftovers in the fridge. Only now it’s not boyishly charming, it’s fucking _alarming_. Mickey isn’t the type to give a fuck about cluttered, untidy spaces, he grew up in one and didn’t really consider it a problem until he became a father himself and started worrying about shit like choking hazards and sharp edges, black mould and dust particles, but this is on a whole other level.

There are boxes of old takeout sitting out by the computers, smelling up the place, and all the crap Ian’s got stored in boxes seems pulled off the shelves and dumped on the floor, along with dirty laundry and a litany of hopefully empty pizza boxes. Mickey ignores the state of it and moves through the room, past the little kitchen nook, to peer inside Ian’s bedroom. It’s not as bad in there, but that’s probably because there literally isn’t any space in which to make too much of a mess. Ian’s still in his boxers, rifling through his wardrobe and angrily jerking out t-shirts before throwing them in a pile on the floor.

”Fuck Ian,” Mickey sums it up, gesturing towards the state of his apartment and Ian’s general appearance, even though Ian isn’t turning around to face him, ”the fuck are you doing?”

”Getting dressed,” Ian snaps, throwing a shirt over his shoulder and then bending down to rifle through the messy pile, ”we were gonna go out, right? That’s why you’re here?”

”No, I-,” Mickey starts and frowns at himself, anger slowly taking over from the worry and the confusion, ”Jesus, Ian. You smell like ass, you look like shit, man, it’s already fucking nine PM. It’s done, it’s over.”

”You wanna go out,” Ian mutters, finally finding a shirt he for some reason deems clean and good enough to put on, even though it looks just as wrinkly and nasty as the rest of them, ”we’re gonna go out.”

”Fuck you,” Mickey spits out and crosses his arms, shifting his stance defensively when Ian huffs, ”the fuck is wrong with you? You let me wait for you like some bitch for an hour and a half and come all the way over here only to find out you’ve been, what? Ignoring all my calls, letting me get all worried for nothing, and now _you’re_ the one getting prissy, acting like _I_ done something wrong? Fuck. You.”

Ian huffs again but still doesn’t turn around when he jerkily pulls the shirt on. Then he bends his head, hands on his hips and shoulders strumming with angry energy. Mickey is about to go in there and force him to turn around when Ian suddenly flings out his arm, fist punching hard against the closed side of his wardrobe. The wood makes a nasty cracking sound but doesn’t break and Mickey thinks he might have to rush in and restrain him when Ian looks ready to lash out again, but he stands back when Ian slaps the palm of his hand against the wood, once, hard, and lets it rest there like he needs the support. Then his head falls forward just a little further and he brings up his other hand to shield his eyes, his shoulders still shaking.

”Jesus, Ian,” Mickey winces and tries to think of something to say, tries to gauge whether or not he’s gonna get punched if he tries to touch Ian right now. Ian’s told him about some shit he’s done in the past, about training hand-to-hand combat for West Point, about fights with Lip, about actual fights with people trying to beat the gay out of him, or whatever, and Mickey’s never been too bothered by any of it. Aggression doesn’t scare him, he’s got plenty of it in himself to know what it’s like to want to punch a hole in your wall, or in _someone_ , and he’s lived with it in others long enough to know the difference between someone who’s actively out to hurt him, and someone who’s never gonna cross that line.

He knows Ian won’t hurt him like that, but that doesn’t mean that Ian wants to be touched right now. So Mickey stands back and waits, only for what he doesn’t know. But then Ian’s shoulders draw up and he slumps forward, his forehead hitting against the wardrobe’s hard wooden surface with a nasty thump.

”Can’t believe I’m already fucking this up,” he mutters and Mickey can hear how he clenches his jaw over the words. He sounds exhausted and sad, and Mickey feels his anger drain away again.

”What are you fucking up?” he asks, moving into the room with a couple of steps and almost reaching Ian already, sees a little more of the side of his face. ”Ian?”

Ian sighs, his hand sliding down the wardrobe to hang by his side as he turns around and leans back against the gangly piece of furniture, the whole thing bucking a little under his weight. He picks his head up by a fraction and glances at Mickey through his eyelashes, brows furrowed.

”You, me,” he says with a shrug, turning into an angry shake of his head as he closes his eyes, ”you’re so good, and here I go.”

”Hey, what-,” Mickey says and swallows over the way his desperation comes out sounding a lot like anger, Ian looking up at him with shining eyes, ”you spaced on one dumb date, Ian, it happens. Hey-”

He can’t help smiling a little, if only to try and lighten the mood some, when Ian groans and dips his head. He tentatively places his hand on Ian’s shoulder, inching it up to his neck when he isn’t being shrugged off.

”I’m not pissed, okay? Just fucking worried,” he says, trying to will Ian into looking at him again, gently massaging his bent neck with his hand, ”and hungry, you know how fucked up I can get when I’m hungry.”

Ian sniffles and nods, because being sad apparently doesn’t make him any less of a smartass, but he doesn’t look up.

”And I had to ride the fucking bus,” Mickey continues his list of complaints, taking a step closer, ”and there was this dude at the bar tryna hit on me? Ian, I’m a disaster when you’re not around, that’s all.”

Mickey grins when Ian lets out a small, wet laugh. It sounds a little pathetic, but it’s in the right direction.

”You’re not fucking up,” he says and instinctively wraps his arms around Ian’s neck when he rocks forward a little, falling against Mickey and burying his face in his shoulder.

If Mickey thought he’d been worried before, it’s nothing compared to what he’s feeling now, clutching his arms around Ian’s shaking frame and frowning at the wetness seeping into his shirt where Ian’s pressing his whole face into his shoulder. He’s never seen Ian like this before. He’s had his highs and lows, they come with his disorder and it’s whatever, but it’s not been anything like this.

He wonders if Ian’s been hiding this shit from him, pretending he was fine and falling apart inside.

”Sorry,” Ian mutters into his shoulder, hands clutching the back of Mickey’s jacket, ”I’m so fucking sorry.”

Mickey frowns and runs the tips of his fingers up the back of Ian’s neck, into his hair. ”It’s fine, okay? Relax.”

Ian pulls in a shaky breath and takes a step back, but Mickey keeps his hands on his neck and shoulders and Ian keeps his head bent and eyes averted. 

”Fuck,” Ian mumbles and shakes his head, his whole posture tense with regret, ”I didn’t go to work today.”

Mickey sighs and moves his hand to cup Ian’s cheek, gently angling his face up a little but not managing to get him to look at him completely.

”Probably fired by now,” Ian nods at his own assumption, eyes screwing shut again over the wetness spilling over, ”oh god, what the fuck am I doing?”

Mickey doesn’t know what to say, at all, so he tries to pull Ian back into another hug. But Ian buries his face in his hands and takes a couple of steps back, Mickey’s failing hands falling off his slumped shoulders.

”I don’t get it,” Ian mutters, head shaking slightly from side to side and fingertips digging into his closed eyes, ”I’m taking my fucking pills, Mick, I swear.”

”I believe you,” Mickey is quick to promise, nodding to support his quiet words.

”I just feel-, fuck,” Ian sighs and sits down on his unmade bed, the springs in the mattress squeaking in protest under the heavy drop of his weight, ”feel like there’s something-, something just out of reach. I can’t sleep.”

Ian rubs angrily at his face, elbows on his knees and back bent.

”Thought I was on to something this week,” he says, fingers raking through the sides of his hair when he bends his head, ”stayed up at night searching-, taking to people who say they feel the same way, you know? Finding these articles… I thought-, maybe. But it’s just words, none of it seems any more real than-, Jesus. Mick. I completely forgot about our date.”

Mickey’s standing in Ian’s cramped, dark bedroom, staring down at his boyfriend being pulled apart by the messed up wiring in his own head, and he feels utterly useless. He hesitates for a few seconds, rubbing at his bottom lip and wondering what he could possibly do, what kind of help he could ever imagine being to someone like Ian. Strong and sure and beautiful like the sun, eclipsed by something Mickey can’t even begin to understand.

But then Ian finally looks up at him, eyes big and shiny, and Mickey practically melts at his feet, taking a couple of steps forward and crouching down on the floor. He grabs Ian’s knees for support and then locks their eyes together again, makes sure he’s got Ian’s attention.

”You need to relax,” he starts, trying to sound like he’s somewhat confident in what he’s saying, ”don’t worry about your job, call ’em on Monday and you’ll see it’s fine. They love your ass over there and Bonnie wouldn’t fire you for missing one fucking day, man, come on.”

Ian lets out a slow exhale, nodding slightly.

Mickey feels the side of his mouth quirking up in an involuntary smirk as he takes in Ian’s face, the familiar lines and curves, the light freckles faded into his pale skin. He’s missed simply looking at his dumb face, and he didn’t know just how much until now. 

But then he frowns and picks up a hand to place it over Ian’s cheek, swiping the pad of his thumb over the stern line next to his mouth, across the dark shadow under his eye.

”You look like shit,” he says, and grins quickly when Ian rewards his insensitive comment with a pained, but amused, twist of his lips, ”wanna lie down?”

Ian nods and carefully scoots back on the bed, keeping his eyes firmly on Mickey as he gingerly picks himself up off the floor. Mickey leans over him when Ian stretches out on the bed and he grabs the covers that are bunched up along the wall, pulling them up and over Ian’s pale body.

”You want me in or out?” Mickey asks and just nods when Ian immediately edges back against the wall, leaving enough space for him to fit. Mickey takes off his jacket and toes off his shoes before he sits down on the bed, turning one of Ian’s pillows on its side to make a better support when he leans back against the wall, stretching out his legs and crossing his ankles.

Ian sighs and curls up a little and Mickey hopes he’s doing this right. One time Ian told him he was feeling low and kinda antsy, and he’d asked not to be touched too much, and he’d said he could feel suffocated sometimes by being too close to other people, like their breathing was sucking the air outta him. Mickey’s trying to imagine what that’s like, and what Ian wants from him, feeling like that. It makes him feel clumsy and stupid, but at a loss for what else he can do except be there, and try to respect Ian’s personal space. 

He feels like he can breathe again when Ian unearths his arm from the covers and hooks it around Mickey’s waist, pulling himself closer until his nose is almost hitting against the side of Mickey’s hip.

The position and the wall behind Mickey quickly become uncomfortable, so he sinks down a little, carefully, until he’s got Ian snuggling into the side of his ribs instead and he can rest his hand down on Ian’s shoulder, rubbing it soothingly as Ian shuffles around some to settle in better.

Mickey relaxes completely when he feels Ian’s chest rise and fall with a deep sigh, feels the warmth of his breath against his ribs and remembers all the times Ian’s made stupid comments about how much he likes the way Mickey smells, trying to sound like he’s joking but never quite managing to hide the way he breathes him in when they’re about to fall asleep, the cold tip of his nose pressing into the back of Mickey’s neck.

Mickey traces the line of Ian’s arm with his eyes, up to his shoulder and then down to his neck and the profile of his face, nuzzled in against his side. He finally looks calm, but he looks small, curled up like that, and it clenches uncomfortably at Mickey’s heart. Mickey lets go of his shoulder to carefully place his hand on Ian’s head, slowly combing his fingers through his unkempt, wavy hair.

Ian lets out a soft, content sound that settles everything, and Mickey sits like that and gently runs his fingers through Ian’s hair until his back is hurting and his left leg is falling asleep, his skin prickling and stinging in warning. Ian is finally asleep too, so Mickey carefully dislodges himself from his embrace and stands up, shaking out his leg a little and stretching his back before quietly closing the paper thin bedroom door and leaving the room.

He’s so hungry he barely even feels it anymore and a quick survey of Ian’s fridge tells him they’ve got squat to work with. So he checks his back pocket for his wallet and takes Ian’s keys from the hook next to the door, leaving the apartment as quietly as he can. He doesn’t go further than the convenience store on the corner, happy for once to pay extra just for the _convenience_ of getting back to Ian as quickly as possible. He grabs a carton of eggs, cheese, some bread and OJ, and he’s back in the apartment within ten minutes.

He clears the hotplate and cleans enough of the dishes to make himself a decent omelet, standing by the sink and holding the plate as he eats it on auto-pilot, eyes trained on the same spot on the opposite wall the whole time. He feels a little better when he’s done, a little warmer on the inside and at least not dizzy with hunger anymore. So he does all the dishes and then he goes through the apartment with a trash bag, throwing out anything looking even remotely perishable, most of which have already long since perished. He sorts out all the dirty clothes from the rest of the junk and leaves it in a big pile, and just because Ian has a washer-dryer crammed in under the counter, next to the sink, he decides to do a quick load of laundry.

Wandering aimlessly around the room, waiting for the washer to finish, he hesitates for maybe half a second when he sees the blinking light on the answering machine before he presses play, stepping back and folding his arms across his chest as he listens.

_”Ian, this is Bonnie, I’m just calling to tell you that it’s eight thirty on Friday the twenty-sixth, and you’re late. Be here in fifteen minutes or this is going in your weekly report, I don’t care how lazy you’re feeling, you knew today was going to be hectic. Call me back if there’s something seriously wrong, otherwise you better be on your way. Bye.”_

The machine beeps and stutters, and Mickey sighs, rubbing roughly at his eyebrow. Ian better still have that job, being fired right now would probably break him.

_”Ian, this is Bonnie again, where the hell are you? My boss is breathing down my neck about this new contract and we’re really struggling to meet our quota. Whatever. Don’t bother showing up today, I covered for you and said you called in sick, but I will hang you out to dry if it turns out you’re just out gallivanting or nursing a hangover. Please let me know if you’re deadly sick so I can stop being mad at you and start feeling like a monster for yelling at you instead. Thanks, bye.”_

Mickey lets out a relieved breath and is too busy feeling thankful towards Ian’s team leader that he isn’t at all prepared when his own, sharp voice comes through the speaker.

_”-k. Ey, Gallagher, get your fucking ass here now or I’ma get a nice little table all to myself, candle and napkins and everything, and then I’ma get the most expensive thing off the menu, and you know it’s gonna be steak and you know l’ma have ’em make it so rare it’s gonna scream when I bite it, and then, then I’m gonna go home and sit on one of my rubber dicks, and you know I got at least two that got your nine inches beat, buddy, so you know I’m gonna have a real good time doin’ it.”_

Mickey rolls his eyes at himself, trying to be so fucking clever all the time, it’s ridiculous. He’s not sure why he’s even listening to his own stupid messages, but he thinks he needs to hear them.

_”You’ve got ten minutes, tick fuckin’ tock Alice.”_

The tape clicks and beeps and Mickey steels himself for the next one, carefully studying his shoes when his voice returns, all his previous snark replaced with something he thought would come across as angry, but only sounds desperate and brittle.

_”Ian, come on, man. Pick the fuck up. I’ve been here for an hour and a half already, waiting and calling you like some bitch, just pick up the fucking phone and call me back. I’m worried about you. I love you.”_

Mickey lets out a shaky breath at the sound of it, closing his eyes with relief when he realizes what he’s about to do.

_”Shit. Just call me back, asshole.”_

He deletes the messages.

Finding Bonnie’s name on the list of numbers taped to the wall, Mickey picks up the phone and dials the number. It goes straight to her machine.

”Yeah, hi,” Mickey starts and frowns, ”this is Mickey uh-, Milkovich. I don’t know if you remember me but Ian dragged me along to your New Year’s thing? I’m calling on Ian’s behalf, ’cause he’s not doing too good, which I suppose you figured out yourself, huh?”

Mickey knows that she knows about Ian, but he also knows that Ian keeps a tight lid on his personal and medical business around his colleagues. Better let him do any and all explaining himself once he’s feeling better.

”So, yeah,” he says, shrugging a little to himself, ”guess he’ll show up on Monday or else give you a call and let you know, um- otherwise. Thanks.”

He hangs up and glances quickly at his watch before he dials Svetlana’s cellphone. She should be awake, but Yevgeny is definitely asleep by now.

Awake or not, she doesn’t sound too happy to get his call. _”What?”_

”Am I interrupting something?” He smirks when he hears Nika say something in Russian in the background.

 _”We are knitting little scarf, doing crossword puzzle,”_ Svetlana says and Mickey can practically hear the eye-roll, _”it is Friday night, baby is asleep, what do you think we’re doing? Ty che, blyad?”_

”You gotta stop calling him a baby, Svet, fuck,” Mickey sighs, ignoring her insults, ”kid’s almost five, gonna screw him up doing that shit.”

 _”All men are babies,”_ Svetlana dismisses him, a shrill laugh cutting through the background, _”makes no difference.”_

”Yeah, okay,” Mickey doesn’t have time for this, even though bickering with Svetlana feels oddly comforting, ”listen, I’m at Ian’s right now and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

 _”You said you take baby,”_ Svetlana starts, words blending into a long string of quick Russian.

”Calm the fuck down,” Mickey hisses into the receiver, careful not to raise his voice too much, ”it’s my weekend and I’m not bailing on him, alright? All I’m saying is I don’t know if you can drop him off at the ass crack of dawn this time. How about you chill and we’ll come pick him up some time before lunch?”

_”You and carrot boy?”_

”Yeah, sure,” Mickey fibs, not knowing what Ian’s gonna say about it when he wakes up. Svetlana likes Ian, though, probably more than she ever liked Mickey, and it seems to convince her.

 _”Okay,”_ she decides, _”don’t be late.”_

She hangs up before he has time to say anything.

”Bitch,” he tells the phone’s dull tone and hangs up, too.

The laundry isn’t done, so he checks in on Ian. Watches him sleep from the doorway until he can hear the washer lurch into its last cycle, the centrifuge thrumming against the kitchen counter, and the machine beeping softly when it’s done.

He pulls out the whole load, then he sorts out a pair of boxers, one t-shirt, Ian’s favorite hoodie and some sweats, shoving them back into the machine and setting it to dry on the fastest program he can find. He buries his face in Ian’s warm hoodie when it’s done, checking that it’s completely dry and maybe dwelling for a second in the familiar scent of Ian’s detergent, and then he folds the set of clothes into a sloppy pile and leaves them on the foot of Ian’s bed.

He puts the rest of the laundry back in the machine to dry and stands for a while in the kitchen, unsure of what else to do. If he’d been at home he would’ve sat down with a beer and watched some late night TV, letting the waffle and buzz distract him for a while. Ian doesn’t have a TV, and he doesn’t have any beer either, so Mickey’s pretty much fresh outta luck. What he does have is a leaky tap and pipes that stutter and bang like holy hell when you cut off the water, so Mickey digs out the toolbox he found under a couple of pizza boxes earlier and gets down on the floor, on his back, shouldering his way in under the sink with a flickering flashlight stuck between his teeth.

He’s good at fixing things, always has been, and he knows that he gets a little singleminded sometimes when he sees a problem and he just wants it mended, wants to solve it. Ian isn’t a problem, and he isn’t broken, but Mickey can still feel his hands itching to fix him. Not because he wants Ian to be perfect or whatever, but because he wants him to be happy.

He seems happy when he’s with Mickey, and maybe that’s not enough but it’s pretty much all Mickey can do. Ian tells him he almost stopped talking to his family when they tried to push him into treating his disorder, when he first got diagnosed, and Mickey doesn’t want to do the same mistake. Ian has to be allowed to take care of himself, and ask for help when he needs it. Even though he’s a stubborn asshole who fucking never asks for help and they both know it.

Mickey thinks he has located the problem when he hears Ian’s shower turning on, water flowing through one of the pipes next to his head, and by the time he can hear Ian getting dressed in the other room, he’s pretty sure he’s managed to fix it. He can hear Ian talking on the phone, voice low, as he gets up off the floor and gives the tap a try, smiling when the water flows out without any of the pipes slamming, or water dripping out on the floor. He’s vaguely aware of that Ian’s stopped taking and stopped shuffling around in the bedroom, but he’s still surprised to realize he’s standing in the bedroom doorway, arms hugged tightly around himself and his unreadable eyes trained on Mickey.

Mickey shoots him a quick smile over his shoulder, and then turns his back again so he can wash some residual dust and cobweb off his hands.

”I love you.”

Mickey freezes still with his hands under the running water, not sure if he actually heard that right. He turns off the tap and grabs a towel to dry his hands as he slowly turns around, leaning back against the sink and staring over at Ian.

Ian’s got his forehead in the palm of his hand, head bent and shoulders tense, a fucking picture definition of regret if Mickey ever saw one. But then he looks up and his eyes are soft and warm when his lips pull into a crooked smile.

”Not saying that just ’cause you put up with my shit,” he starts explaining, gesturing towards Mickey with his whole hand, ”or ’cause you’re fixing my fucking sink or-, fuck.”

Mickey feels panic rising inside him, hairs standing on end up his neck, when Ian’s face suddenly twists into a sad frown and big, fat tears start falling from his eyes, catching on his crossed arms and his hand when he picks it up to wipe it angrily across his face.

”I really do love you,” he practically sobs before he takes a deep breath and pulls himself together, ”and this is such a shitty fucking way to tell you, I’m sorry-”

”Hey,” Mickey says, and huffs out a low laugh when Ian winces and dips his head again, ”come on, I love you too, okay?”

Ian doesn’t look at him, but there’s no mistaking the hidden smile by the way his cheeks move and his eyes crinkle.

”And I’m not just saying that ’cause you’re crying like a little girl right now,” Mickey clarifies, grinning wide when Ian laughs and finally picks up his head, resting it back against the wall and looking at Mickey like he thinks he’s an idiot. It’s awesome. 

”Fuck you,” Ian says and sniffles wetly, pulling the sleeve of his hoodie down his hand so he can wipe it across his face.

”I mean it’s cute and all,” Mickey continues his light teasing, because it’s working, ”but it’s not why.”

”Yeah?” Ian sighs, wiping down his other cheek with the back of his hand. ”Then why?”

”You know why,” Mickey says and for a second he’s worried that he’s said the wrong thing. That he should have brought out the whole list, read him all the poems. But then Ian meets his eyes and they just look at each other for a moment, and he knows. He knows that Ian’s feeling it too.

Mickey grips the edge of the counter behind him.

”I worry about you,” he says, almost cutting off his words when he swallows convulsively, ”I know you don’t want me all up in your business but you gotta tell me if there’s anything I can do to help you, Ian. It fucking kills me to see you like this.”

”Called the clinic,” Ian says with a small nod, ”they’re closed over the weekend but I left a message, and if I go there early on Monday I can probably get an emergency appointment.”

”I’ll go with you,” Mickey decides, quickly, ”don’t gotta stay if you don’t want me there, but I’ll borrow the car and I’ll drive you, that okay?”

”Was thinking,” Ian says, eyes on the floor between them, ”if I could put you down as my I.C.E.”

”Sure,” Mickey agrees without thinking, and then frowns at himself, ”what’s that?”

Ian huffs and looks up at him, eyes narrow with his crooked smile. ”In case of emergency contact, means they’ll call you first if something… happens.”

”Okay,” Mickey says.

”And maybe I can give Bonnie your number, too?” Ian asks, voice still stupidly uncertain.

”Yeah,” Mickey breathes out, a deeply set sense of relief flooding through his tense shoulders and down his back with every suggestion Ian makes, ”thanks.”

Ian blinks at him, like he’s surprised by Mickey’s gratitude. He probably thinks he’s being a burden, asking these things of his own damn boyfriend. He’s an idiot, but he’s Mickey’s idiot.

”And,” Ian continues quietly, ”could you stay? With me, tonight.”

Mickey nods, because at this point Ian would’ve had to defenestrate him if he’d wanted him to leave. ”I’ve got Yev this weekend.”

Ian winces and dips his head.

”’Course,” he says, ”I’m sorry, I forgot.”

So far, Mickey’s been careful about having Ian over when he’s had Yevgeny home. The two have met, many times, but it’s been their joint decision to take it slow and feel it out, and so far it’s always been that Ian goes home to his own apartment whenever he’s spent the day with Mickey and Yevgeny together. The last couple of weekends, Mickey’s really had to hold himself back not to ask Ian to stay over. The kid already loves him, Mickey’s already sure of where he wants this thing to go. He hopes that Ian’s hesitance is all about not wanting to encroach on Mickey’s little family, and has nothing to do with how he feels, or what he wants.

”Would you-,” Mickey starts, nervously wetting his lips, ”you could come stay with us this weekend?”

Ian sighs and shakes his head. ”Don’t do that, Mick.”

Mickey frowns and pushes away from the counter, and by the time he’s crossed the room and he’s standing toe to toe with Ian, he can feel that his frown has smoothed into a calm smile, and Ian’s looking at him like he’s never seen him before.

”You’re staying with us,” Mickey says and touching a hand to Ian’s cheek he knows Ian’s just been waiting for him to ask, letting out a low breath and closing his eyes as he leans into the touch, ”wanna take care of you, just… just let me try, okay?”

Ian kisses him, quick and dry but so sincerely Mickey’s head spins, and Ian eats the two pieces of cheese toast Mickey makes him, and Ian pulls Mickey in around himself to be the big spoon for once when they crawl back in bed together.

Turns out Mickey kinda hates it, but he keeps his complaints to himself and eventually he manages to drift off, even though his back is cold and he has to lie there like a fool and regurgitate his own air, his breath bouncing off Ian’s broad shoulders and hitting him right in the face. It stinks and they’re switching back tomorrow, if Mickey gets his way. But not tonight. 

The things he does for this fucking guy.

 

 

.


	3. May 30, 1999

May 30, 1999

 

Mickey blinks against the bright light, the world slowly shifting into focus. He groans and screws his eyes closed, bringing up a hand to pinch over the bridge of his nose and push down on his eyelids. Ian shifts behind him but doesn’t wake up, judging by the sound of his soft snoring and the lack of effort in his lazily rolling hips. No, there are only two people awake in this bed right now and one is Mickey, and the other is Ian’s monster dong, reaching for more than Ian’s capable of providing in his unconscious state, poking into Mickey’s soft ass cheek. Mickey snorts and digs the side of his face into the pillow, willing his brain to hit the snooze button.

It’s no use, he’s wide awake. Sighing he slips out of Ian’s heavy arms and sits on the edge of the bed for a beat, shaking his head at the way Ian sinks into the warm dip in the mattress left behind Mickey’s body, blindly grabbing a pillow and hugging it close to his chest. Mickey rakes his eyes over Ian’s relaxed face, his pale skin practically glowing in the sharp morning sun, spring rushing into summer with each day just a little warmer. Extending a hand he touches it carefully to Ian’s temple, tracing the side of his face with the tips of his fingers, brushing them up through his ruffled hair, shining in copper and sharp orange. 

It took a while for them to settle into a routine, but the last month or so Ian’s almost been spending more time at Mickey’s than he has at his own place, only going back there when he’s had a project demanding his attention and the substantial firepower of his own computers. Mickey could get used to it, waking up with Ian right there next to him, warm and firm and _there_. In more ways than one.

Mickey smirks and tears his eyes off Ian’s magnetic face, wincing when the sun hits him again. Holding up a hand to shield his eyes he gets up and approaches the window, grabbing at the strings to turn out the blinds and cast the room in a slightly more forgiving shade. Glancing at Ian one last time he shuffles out the room and crosses the apartment to stick his head through Yevgeny’s cracked door, quietly closing it once he sees that he’s sleeping peacefully. 

The kid has had a hard time with it lately, nightmares every other week waking him up and causing him to come into Mickey’s room well after midnight. Sometimes Mickey elbows Ian awake enough to scoot back so Yevgeny can crawl into the bed and fall asleep with them. Sometimes he takes his kid back to his own room and sits with him until he calms down and drifts off again, sometimes he reads him one of his little stories. A few times, Ian’s been the one shook awake by a crying Yevgeny and, mistake or not, every time it’s happened Ian’s simply invited Yevgeny to crawl over him and make room for himself in the middle of the bed, and Mickey’s only had to wake up enough to hear them whisper and giggle quietly to each other in the dark. Mickey could get used to that too, to no longer be a single dad.

He walks through the silent apartment, not too concerned with keeping quiet once he’s in the kitchen as Ian and Yevgeny could be related by the way they both seem to turn into stone in the mornings. Turning out yesterday’s filter, he only passably cleans the coffeemaker before he loads it and turns it on, staring out the little window above the sink as he washes his hands. They’ve got the whole day ahead of them to do whatever, with no obligations or plans, and Mickey has a vague moment of unadulterated happiness right there, staring at the hazy morning sky and reveling in the feeling of contentment washing over him out of nowhere.

He’s gonna ask Ian to move in, and he’s gonna ask him today.

It’s early days still, yeah sure, and who knows where the fuck they’ll put all of Ian’s junk, but whatever, it feels right. A jolt of pleasure runs through him at the thought and suddenly he’s painfully aware of the fact that they pretty much crashed into bed last night, too tired to even close the blinds and definitely too tired to initiate any extracurricular activities.

He thinks of Ian’s warm body all wrapped around him and his pretty glorious morning wood going to waste while Mickey’s standing in the kitchen like some punk, blood rushing south and pressing matters to a distinctive head. Mickey hums in anticipation and palms himself briefly before making a quick decision and heading for the bathroom. Taking off his tank and boxers he steps into the shower, the warm water slowly building up steam around him as he avoids getting his hair wet and quickly washes off.

While he’s in there he works himself open, for the sake of efficiency, and within minutes he’s beyond ready for Ian’s fingers to take the baton, or maybe just skip the relay and jump straight to the sprint. Getting out of the shower, he towels himself off and bunches up his clothes to cover himself a little as he speed-walks back to his bedroom and makes sure to lock the door behind him, before turning to the bed and dropping his modesty on the floor.

Ian’s on his back, one arm over his face and the thin sheet tenting over his crotch. Mickey grins and grabs the end of the sheet, gathering it up in his hands and drinking in the sight of Ian’s half naked body slowly being revealed. Ian doesn’t stir, so Mickey throws the sheet aside and doesn’t bother with being careful as he gets a knee up on the bed and crawls over to Ian to straddle his thighs and run his hands up his torso, then down again to grab at the waistband of his boxers, smirking as he lifts it up and pushes down the fabric just enough for Ian’s dick to spring free.

He looks up in time to see Ian’s arm fall away and his eyes blinking groggily down his body, locking on to Mickey and spreading a warm smile across his face. Groaning sleepily he closes his eyes again and pushes the pillows around when he balls up his fists and stretches out, sighing as Mickey hunches down to press his dry lips against his warm skin, just below his right nipple.

”Morning,” Ian chuckles, voice still heavy with sleep, and sucks in a sharp breath when Mickey drags the tip of his tongue over the nub of his nipple, his long fingers suddenly digging into Mickey’s slightly damp hair. ”Did you shower?”

”Uh-huh,” Mickey breathes out over the wet patch of skin, before kissing his way down the side of Ian’s ribs, over his tattoo, ”gettin’ ready for you.”

Ian groans and bucks his hips up, their dicks rubbing together briefly before he drops back down. 

”You awake yet,” Mickey drawls and sits down more, shuffling his knees some until they’re better lined up and they get some of that teasing friction back, ”or you gonna need a minute?”

Ian arches up a little when Mickey turns some of his lazy attention to his other nipple, and the fingers in his hair ball up in a tight grip. ”Come up here and I’ll show you.”

Mickey hums and then abruptly sits up, Ian’s hands falling off his head and landing on his thighs. Trying to sound disappointed, Ian’s appreciative eyes say something else, roaming all over Mickey while his hands slowly rub up and down his thighs, the tip of his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

”Later,” Mickey decides and ignores Ian’s exaggerated ’oof’ when he leans over him to open one of the drawers in the beside table. Ian’s hands move up his thighs and hug around his hips, fingers digging into his ass in two greedy handfuls, his mouth reaching up to nibble and suck lightly at Mickey’s shoulder. His head falls down on the pillow when Mickey sits back up, but his pleased smirk is quickly replaced with a picky crinkle of his nose.

”Not that one,” he says, ”use the edible one.”

Mickey sighs but does as he’s told, leaning his weight over Ian a little heavier this time as he makes a show of rummaging through the drawer again, smiling at the feeling of Ian’s silent laughter, shaking through his whole body.

”Chocolate? Strawberry shortcake?” Mickey suggests and pretends to rifle through a whole battery of lube bottles even though they both know they’ve only got the cheap ass store brand one, the edible plain one, and the one supposedly tasting like watermelon that the one time they tried it made Ian gag so badly it almost ruined the whole evening. ”Smokey bacon?”

Ian replies by biting him in the bicep and sticking the tip of a dry finger up his asshole. Mickey shrugs him off and playfully puts a hand to his wildly grinning face as he pushes himself up again, shoving his ass back onto Ian’s finger just to show him he can take it. Like Ian doesn’t already know. Ian laughs out loud and starts pressing wet kisses into the palm smothering down his face, removing his finger to grab on to the jiggle of Mickey’s ass instead.

Mickey makes a face and wipes his wet palm off on Ian’s cheek and down his neck, before he lets go of his face to sit back and give the bottle of lube a few good shakes.

”Got plans that involve eating this shit?” Mickey asks with a raised eyebrow, flicking the cap open with his thumb and squeezing out a modest amount into his other hand.

”Just planning ahead,” Ian says and bites his lip, rolling his eyes back in exaggerated embarrassment, ”pretty sure I’m not gonna last very long.”

Clicking the cap back on and scowling down at his boyfriend, Mickey quickly lubes up his fingers and leaning back a little grabs on to Ian’s thigh for support as he brings his wet hand around himself to push it down his crack and just past his already stretched out rim.

”You been doin’ stuff without me?” he accuses, because stamina usually isn’t an issue between the two of them. Ian’d looked like he was sleeping innocently when Mickey came back to the room, but who knows what he’d been up to while Mickey was in the shower.

Ian hums and looks him over with hooded eyes, looking like he’s enjoying the show even though Mickey’s not indulging in any kind of flourish right now, eager to get to the main event as fast as he can.

”Dreamed about you,” he mumbles, his eyes turning all soft and warm and his hands stroking up and down Mickey’s thighs again instead of helping out with the prep. Mickey snorts but can’t deny the way his cheeks burn a little under Ian’s gaze, heavy with sentiment, even as he removes his hand from his ass and busies himself with slicking up Ian’s full dick.

”Yeah, okay,” Mickey dismisses him, and he would deny it to the end of time but he kinda loves these lazy Sunday morning lays when Ian thinks he can just lie there and shoot him fucking heart eyes and let Mickey do all the work, ”not sure what dream me does for you there, Sleeping Beauty, but guess you gotta settle for what you’ve got.”

He doesn’t wait for whatever protest he can see running through Ian’s mind before he picks himself up and grabs on to Ian’s dick to steady it, his thighs burning as he slowly sinks down on it, closing his eyes over the sudden, overpowering stretch of Ian steadily filling him up.

”Mick,” Ian gasps, his nails digging into Mickey’s tense thigh muscles, slowly relaxing as he sits down completely, Ian’s dick all the way inside him and hips digging into his soft ass. ”Don’t move, don’t move. Shit, fuck.”

Mickey smirks down at Ian’s strained face, eyes closed and mouth slack with his heavy breathing, brows furrowed in concentration. He sits still, because he wants to ride Ian for as long as he can before he blows his load and teasing him right now would be detrimental to that plan. Instead he gives his own dick a few lazy pumps, encouraging his flagging erection back into action.

”’m good,” Ian then says, eyes still closed as he nods at Mickey to start moving.

”You sure?” Mickey asks and tries it out with a slow roll.

”Fuck, Mickey,” Ian sighs and blindly grabs at his ass again when Mickey sits up a little, spreads his cheeks apart and bucks up inside him. That’s it, all of Mickey’s smug bravado falls away with that one careful stab, stirring him up and sending his whole body into overdrive. Ian picks up on his reaction, even with his eyes still shut and looking like he’s pretty much gone from this world, and he plants his feet on the mattress as he sets a slow, steady pace, pushing up into Mickey with small, measured strokes.

Mickey lets himself be held up and falls forward, bracing himself with his hands on Ian’s chest, weighting him down. He can hear himself moan with every little thrust dragging Ian’s cock along his inner walls, pressing up inside him, but he can’t stop it any more than he can get himself to close his eyes over the sight of Ian’s blissed out face, falling apart underneath him.

He takes the reigns when Ian’s breath quickens and he loses some of his steady pace, his hips bouncing into Mickey’s ass with graceless eagerness. Mickey sits down on him heavily, trapping his hands between them and forcing Ian still by gyrating his hips and pushing him down into the mattress. Ian lets out a small sound of protest, but he stills and Mickey feels the pressure of his thighs fall away from his lower back when Ian stretches out his legs.

”You close?” Mickey asks even though he knows the answer, his own voice breathless and unfamiliar.

”C’mere,” Ian mumbles and opens his eyes, wide and big and ridding Mickey of any plan or resolution he might have had, melting down and cupping the sides of Ian’s face with both hands, moaning helplessly when the move pulls Ian almost all the way out, Mickey’s hole clenching around him to keep him inside.

Ian surges up to meet him halfway, nose digging into Mickey’s cheek and mouth closing around his bottom lip, sucking gently before opening up more and moving mindlessly into the sloppy kiss. Mickey grabs on to his face and holds him there, only vaguely registering how Ian settles on his elbows for support to maintain their new position, and he sits back down, grinning against Ian’s parted lips when they kinda grunt in unison at the renewed connection. 

Mickey wraps one arm around Ian’s neck and puts the other down on the mattress for support, breath stuttering and blending with Ian’s when he starts moving, trying to keep his mouth on Ian’s even while he bounces on his dick, moving faster and faster until Ian makes a sound kinda like he’s been punched in the gut and he slumps down on his back, hands shooting up to grab at Mickey’s neck and hair, eyes shut tight and mouth open with a silent moan as he shakes through his orgasm.

”Fuck,” he mutters and pulls Mickey down, nudges their faces together until he finds Mickey’s lips again, kissing him with a kind of graceless abandon he only shows when he’s at his most vulnerable. It might have freaked Mickey out once, reaching these kind of heights and depths with someone, feeling this unlimited intimacy with someone, but not now. Not with Ian. He allows for it, he leans into it, he kisses Ian back with what he hopes is somehow equal his open passion.

”Dreams got nothing on you,” Ian sighs against his lips and smiles wide when Mickey groans at his cheesy proclamation, but then laughs and desperately tries to grab at him when Mickey picks himself up and moves off him, ”no, no!”

Mickey ignores his protests and squirms out of his grabby hands, shuffling off the bed. 

”Forget it, man, you blew it,” he tries to sound serious and starts for the door, grinning when he feels Ian scrambling after him and grabbing him by the wrist.

”I’ll blow _you_ ,” Ian says and pulls him back in, sitting on the edge of the bed all tucked back into his boxers and smiling up at Mickey when he steps in between his knees with minimum resistance.

Mickey huffs and rolls his eyes at his awful line, but doesn’t get the time to reply before Ian’s grabbed his arms around him and heaved him up enough to turn them around and throw Mickey down on the bed. Mickey yelps, bouncing on the springy mattress and getting up on his elbows to watch Ian kneel down on the floor, and he laughs out loud when Ian grabs him by the back of his knees and pulls him closer, hitching his legs over his shoulders and mouthing his way down the inside of his thigh until he’s got his nose buried in Mickey’s dark pubes.

Ian is really fucking proficient at giving head, and Mickey quickly finds himself balls deep down his throat, hands in his sleep-mussed copper hair and toes curling into his right shoulder, his other foot dangling down his back as Ian’s long fingers are prodding him right in the prostate and Mickey’s coming with a long string of garbled curses. Ian swallows around him and then pulls off him with a pleased grin, easing out his fingers and sinking down again to gently lick and press his tongue against Mickey’s still flexing hole.

”You’re so fucking nasty,” Mickey pants and reaches down to push at his forehead when Ian chuckles and demonstratively licks him from his hole to his balls.

”Uh-huh,” Ian shrugs, kissing his way back up Mickey’s thigh, ”takin’ that as a compliment.”

”Well, it ain’t a fucking complaint,” Mickey huffs and struggles a little to sit up, disentangling his legs from around Ian’s neck and scrambling to find at least some of his bearings. Ian pushes him back down enough to get his undivided attention, standing up just so he can lean down and press his lips to Mickey’s in a soft, lingering kiss.

”Mmh,” he sighs as he pulls back a little, grinning when Mickey pretends to swoon and slumps back down on the bed, ”gotta shower.”

Mickey groans in protest but doesn’t try and stop him when Ian straightens up to walk over to the door, unlocking it and disappearing out of sight. Mickey gives himself a couple of minutes of recovery time and then he follows, finding Ian already in the shower when he waltzes into the bathroom to take a leak.

”Don’t even fucking think about flushing that thing while I’m in here,” Ian’s disembodied voice warns him over the sound of the running shower.

”The thought never even crossed my mind,” Mickey lies while he pees, smirking when he hears Ian’s duly suspicious ’sure’. He finishes and leaves the toilet un-flushed, moving over to the sink to check the state of his pretty nonexistent scruff, pushing down on the slight bags under his eyes and pulling his hands through his hair, combing it back.

”You should probably shower again,” Ian says, voice a little muffled. Mickey rolls his eyes at the suggestion but doesn’t answer, partly because he was going to wash off again anyway, and partly because he doesn’t want to encourage Ian’s borderline parental tone. It’s cute when he does it with Yevgeny, and Mickey knows he doesn’t mean it like that when he suggests things to Mickey, but still. Encourage this kinda gateway daddy-kink bullshit he will not.

”I’m not a fucking cat, Mick,” Ian sighs, clearly interpreting his silence as resistance, ”just ’cause I licked your ass from head to toe doesn’t mean you’re clean.”

Mickey huffs and unreasonably feels his heart fill with love when he hears Ian turn off the water and two seconds later he’s pushing the shower curtain aside, peering out at Mickey from under his dripping fringe, combing it back with his fingers and then pulling his hand down his face, wiping off water and flicking it down into the bathtub.

He smiles when he sees Mickey and cocks his head to the side, probably able to tell right away that Mickey’s having a moment of emotional overload and that he’s just being difficult for the hell of it. He steps out of the bathtub and, still dripping wet, he crowds Mickey against the sink and gets their faces real close, staring down into Mickey’s eyes and smirking that little smirk of his, the one he uses when he thinks he knows just where he’s got Mickey and he’s pretty much _absolutely right_. Then his eyes dip and the smirk slips and he’s pressing a soft, slow kiss to the apple of Mickey’s cheek, before he takes a step back and grabs a towel off the rack, smirk back in place when he walks out the bathroom, wiping the towel lazily over his shoulders and probably making a mess on Mickey’s living room floor.

Mickey takes a proper shower, maybe even makes it a little cold at first and only turning up the heat so he can rinse out his shampoo. He dries himself off, still in the bathroom like a responsible fucking adult, and then wraps the towel around his waist before walking back to his room. He gets dressed and then grabs their towels (asshole left his on the floor) to hang them up in the bathroom. Passing Yevgeny’s room on the way to the kitchen Mickey catches a glimpse of Ian in there, now dressed and sitting on the edge of Yevgeny’s bed, their conversation only reaching Mickey as a low murmur. Mickey smiles at the scene but leaves them alone so he can go set up breakfast.

He’s poured two cups of coffee and made himself a large bowl of cereal by the time Ian joins him in the kitchen. Mickey picks up his eyebrows in question when he notices that he’s alone.

”Apparently I’m making pancakes,” Ian announces with a shrug, because of course the big doofus let the kid manipulate him into bribing him out of bed with the promise of pancakes.

”Come on,” Mickey complains and holds up his bowl of cereal, ”the fuck am I supposed to do with this, huh?”

Ian smirks and walks past him to bend over by the stove and dig out a skillet, straightening up and shrugging again. ”Don’t know, Mick. Eat both?”

”Eat both,” Mickey mimics and rolls his eyes, stabbing with his spoon at the slowly expanding milky Cocoa Puffs in his bowl, ”you’re gonna end up datin’ a fucking whale at this rate.”

Ian drops his shoulders with a sigh and gives Mickey a look like he thinks he’s being ridiculous. ”Come the fuck on Mick, you’re fine.”

”Whatever,” Mickey mutters and shifts his feet uncomfortably, leaning back against the counter and eating a big spoonful of his sugary cereal just to counterbalance his insecure hissy fit.

”I love the way you look,” Ian tells him easily, walking past him to get to the fridge, ”wouldn’t mind havin’ more of you.”

”Yeah, sure, okay David,” Mickey huffs and sets down his bowl so he can cross his arms and pay all his attention to Ian walking past him again, carrying eggs and milk, ”bet you’ll change your fuckin’ tune if I pop a pot belly and a pair of man boobs. Fuck off.”

”You’re perfect, and there’s nothing wrong with a little pancake weight,” Ian proclaims and takes out a mixing bowl from one of the lower cupboards, he already knows his way around Mickey’s kitchen, ”and should I worry about whoever this David guy is?”

Mickey scoffs but then realizes that his idiot boyfriend isn’t actually joking. ”Really man, the statue? You know like, the perfect specimen dude or whatever.”

”Michelangelo’s David?” Ian asks, his eyebrows raised in surprise as he pauses with an egg in his hand, raised and ready to be cracked.

”Sure,” Mickey shrugs, ”not David at the office or David from the coffeeshop, who the fuck did you think I meant? You don’t gotta worry about shit, man.”

”Huh,” Ian says, but he’s not even trying to hide the way he’s smiling at his pancake batter, slowly stirring through it, ”so… perfect specimen?”

”Shut up,” Mickey grins and has to look away from Ian’s pleased, brilliant smile, ”you know how you look.”

Mickey glances back at him when he can tell Ian’s shaking his head a little, measuring out something like he’s using it as an excuse to not face Mickey.

”It’s nice to hear,” Ian admits and his smile gets a sheepish tilt to it when his eyes flick over at Mickey, but then he looks back down at his batter and frowns as he stirs through it, ”wait, doesn’t Michelangelo’s David have like a really tiny-”

”Morning daddy,” Yevgeny’s sleepy voice breaks into Ian’s sentence and Mickey looks over to see his kid walk through the door, Ian freezing in place by his side.

”-dick,” Ian concludes, frown even deeper when Mickey snaps his head to the side to stare at him. Ian winces and closes his eyes, but Mickey just barks out an astonished laugh.

”Smooth, babe,” he cackles, ”graceful like a fucking hippo, man.”

”It just fell out!” Ian defends himself and makes a gesture like a cascade of something spewing out of his mouth and into the pancake batter, fingers bursting apart.

Mickey only chuckles and wordlessly grabs Ian’s cup of coffee, transferring it to his other side and placing it pointedly next to Ian’s elbow. Ian rolls his eyes at the gesture but he’s still smiling, and Mickey hears the unmistakeable sound of a pleased sip behind him once he has pushed off the counter to walk towards his son.

”Morning,” he says, picking up Yevgeny in a big hug when he’s close enough, groaning a little more than he’s strictly feeling at having to lift up his still pretty lightweight kid, ”you sleep okay?”

Yevgeny grabs an arm around Mickey’s neck and rubs sleepily at his eyes, nodding. ”Yeah.”

”Yeah,” Mickey agrees and carries him over to the table, ”good.”

He sets Yevgeny down in his chair and ruffles his untidy mop of hair before he walks over to the fridge. ”Juice?”

”Apple, please,” Yevgeny nods, folding his arms on the edge of the table and leaning his chin on his hand, ”what’s a dick?”

Ian groans over by the stove but Mickey just grins, casting a quick glance over his shoulder as he opens the fridge. Yevgeny sits up a little at Ian’s reaction and then looks over at his dad, frowning when he’s obviously feeling like he’s being left out of something.

”Dick’s just another word for penis, bud,” Mickey explains easily, pulling out the apple juice and closing the fridge again, moving across the kitchen to grab Yevgeny’s plastic cup while he talks, ”you know, like wiener, peepee, willie, Johnson, dong, schlong… hose-monster.”

”Pipiska,” Yevgeny contributes with a giggle and holds on to his cup when Mickey sets it down in front of him, making sure it’s steady while Mickey pours him his juice.

”Sure,” Mickey allows, even though he’s not a big fan of his son’s other tongue, ”pipi- whatever.”

”Who’s got a tiny pipiska?” Yevgeny wonders earnestly as Mickey grabs his coffee and sits down. He looks from Mickey to Ian when the latter huffs out a distressed laugh.

”Don’t worry about it, Yev,” Ian tries the evasive line, not turning away from his cooking.

”Next to this one?” Mickey teases and points with his thumb at Ian’s back, knowing his lewd comment is gonna pass right over Yevgeny’s five year old head. ”Everybody.”

”Mick, come on,” Ian warns, ”don’t worry about it, Yevy. Size doesn’t matter, anyway.”

Yevgeny just looks confused by that, and rightly so, turning to Mickey with his dark eyebrows in a perfect arch.

”It matters a little bit,” Mickey confides in him, holding up his hand to measure out a couple of inches between his thumb and pointer finger. Yevgeny cracks a wide smile, probably more at the way Mickey winks at him than because he feels any wiser about the whole subject.

”And sometimes,” Ian sighs, stepping back a little so he can see what he’s doing when he turns on the gas, ”dick just means you’re a big meanie, like your dad.”

Mickey makes a shocked face and puts his fingertips to his chest, shaking his head slowly at Yevgeny who’s just grinning wider, biting his lip over an excited giggle.

”Comin’ into _my_ house,” Mickey laments, ”spreadin’ these _blatant lies_.”

”The people deserve the truth,” Ian shrugs but doesn’t turn around, elbow moving as he’s greasing up the skillet, ”your whole little _dic_ -tatorship’s gonna bite the dust when I’m done, watch me.”

”Ian promised to make pancakes,” Yevgeny says, his stern little frown back when Mickey looks at him. He seems understandably done with their conversation and increasingly worried that he’s done all this waking up business for nothing, if it turns out Ian was lying about breakfast.

”Making ’em now, kiddo,” Ian says, punctuating his promise by pouring out a blob of batter into the pan, the heat and grease sizzling on impact.

”Ian’s trying to buy our affection with gluten and butter and syrup,” Mickey explains, arching his eyebrows and picking up his cup, motioning towards Yevgeny with it, ”is it working?”

Yevgeny smiles at him and Mickey sips his coffee, waiting for a reply. The kid kinda looks like fucking sunshine personified. ”Yeah.”

Mickey nods and winces at the lukewarm coffee going down. ”Yeah, think it’s working.”

”Perfect,” Ian hums and flips the first pancake, Yevgeny gaining like at least fifty percent extra life-force at the sight judging by the way he sits up straighter and tries to peer around Ian at what he’s doing, almost falling out of his chair in the process.

”Careful,” Mickey sighs, smirking a little when Yevgeny springs back in his seat, ”they’re not gonna get done faster just ’cause you fall on your ass, Yev.”

Yevgeny groans and collapses down on the table, arms stretched and face flat against the smooth wood.

”Well shit, Ian, my kid’s dead,” Mickey complains, ”you took too fuckin’ long and you killed him.”

”Bummer,” Ian commiserates, but doesn’t leave his station, ”what do you wanna do?”

”Don’t know,” Mickey sits back and scratches at his cheek, ”take to the road? Travel the world? Eat all the pancakes?”

”Nooo,” Yevgeny protests, folding his arms over his head.

”No?” Mickey winces. ”Fuck-, unpack your bags, babe, guess we’re stayin’.”

”Probably for the best,” Ian sighs and finally turns around to set down a nice little stack of pancakes in front of the lump of hungry despair formerly known as Yevgeny Milkovich. At the sound of the plate scraping against the table, though, the kid suddenly springs back to life and pulls in a deep breath to smell the warm steam coming off his breakfast, nostrils flaring.

”Say thanks,” Mickey reminds him in a mutter and gets up to walk over to the counter and pull out a drawer next to Ian, back to work by the stove.

”Thank you, Ian,” Yevgeny says dutifully from the table and Mickey smirks at Ian’s sappy little smile, his boyfriend flipping another pancake and grinning wide when he glances at Mickey.

”You’re welcome, kiddo,” he says, eyes back on his handiwork. 

Mickey snorts at his polite little motley crew Brady Bunch family and pulls out a couple of forks and knives from the drawer, pushing it back in with his hip and grabbing his old bowl of cereal before he sits down again, handing Yevgeny a set of utensils so he finally can start eating.

Mickey’s goddamned Cocoa Puffs are all soggy, but guess that’s what you get when you let your boyfriend distract and corrupt your household. He eats most of it, ’cause it’s still corrosively sweet and passingly chocolaty so why the fuck not, but pretty much abandons the bowl when Ian appears by his side, pushing a tall stack of pancakes in front of him.

”Say thanks,” Ian mocks Mickey’s excellent parenting, placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning a little closer so he can top up Mickey’s half a cup of cold coffee.

”Fuck off,” Mickey quips but tilts his head back and waits until Ian’s done pouring so he can give him a small, demanding nod. Ian smirks and runs his hand over Mickey’s back to rest it on his other shoulder, and leans his whole body closer as he bends down just enough to fit their lips together in a dry, lingering kiss.

”Thanks,” Mickey says, like it’s being pulled outta him along with his goddamned breath when Ian straightens up and steps back, lips bending into an almost bashful smile. He returns the coffeepot to the counter and grabs his own plate and cup, finally joining Mickey and Yevgeny to sit at the table and enjoy his breakfast.

”So,” Ian starts, grabbing the syrup to squeeze some out on his stack, ”what do you wanna do today?”

Mickey rolls his eyes and shoves a large chunk of sticky pancake into his mouth, this is a conversation he might as well just sit out on. It’s not that Ian is some kinda activity freak but when Mickey would’ve been just as happy to sit on his couch in his boxers on his days off, watching a video or play some fucking Nintendo with his kid, whatever, Ian often wants to _do stuff_. Mickey doesn’t mind, just ’cause he wouldn’t instigate this shit doesn’t mean he doesn’t like it. Some of the best days of his whole damned life has been happening in just the last few months, spent with his kid and this great fucking guy, fitting into his world a like a piece Mickey hadn’t really known he was missing. 

”Movies!” Yevgeny squeaks, stabbing his fork into the air for emphasis.

”Okay,” Ian says and glances at Mickey to make sure it’s alright, raising his eyebrows when Mickey shrugs, ”why not?”

”Could catch one of the mid-day showings,” Mickey suggests, even though he knows it’ll lock them down for the worst kinda inoffensive G rated fare. Which, in all honestly, is pretty much the reason why he suggests a matiné screening in the first place, ’cause last time they tested the waters with something a little more PG, Yevgeny had nightmares for a full week afterwards. Mickey has no interest in traumatizing his kid by pushing him into stuff he’s not ready for, not if he can help it.

Ian smiles at him like he knows what he’s doing, because he’s a smartass and because he’s weirdly attracted to Mickey’s more overtly protective parental moments. But let’s be real, Ian’s weirdly attracted to pretty much all of Mickey’s moments, even when it makes no sense at all and Mickey has to struggle to believe him.

”Let’s do it,” Ian decides, ”start with a movie and then see what happens, take it easy.”

They do. They finish breakfast and Ian helps Yevgeny get ready while Mickey takes care of the dishes. They’re all cleaned up and dressed and ready to go within an hour, getting to the movie theatre ten minutes before a screening of something excessively inoffensive about cartoon elephants is due to start. Ian pays for the tickets, waving Mickey off when he tries to give him money for his and Yevgeny’s share. Yevgeny sits straight like a rod on his booster seat, wide eyes glued to the screen throughout the full twenty minutes of commercials and trailers, plenty of room between him and the back of his seat for Ian to rest his arm, nudging lightly at Mickey’s elbow and ready to catch the kid if he would happen to fall forward in his eagerness, once the actual feature starts. Mickey falls asleep about ten minutes into the movie, head tilted back against the chair and Ian’s knuckles stroking his arm gently, brushing against the hair right above his elbow and lulling him into sleep.

They go for lunch afterwards, burgers and fries at this little diner they like, Ian getting Yevgeny to eat all of his food like he’s a fucking pro parent, goading the kid with just the right blend of nonchalance and challenge. Mickey pays for the food and lets Ian kiss him at the table, just a quick gesture of a peck really, and maybe he didn’t so much _let him_ as he might have _demanded it_. 

They take the long way home, walking through the park and straight into a full on carnival, merry-go-rounds and vendors pushing a wide variety of crap on a milling crowd of people with too much money, willing to spend it on tacky jewelry and animal tees and cheap tricks. It’s no problem, Ian and Mickey both know how to mooch their way through an event with their hard earned dollars unspent, Ian’s got a nose for free samples and Mickey knows how to get the more aggressive vendors to give them a wide berth. The only real challenge is steeling their hearts in the face of Yevgeny’s big blue eyes, once he settles on something he wants enough to bring out the heavy artillery and crank up the Bambi charm.

He gets to Ian first, catching him off guard by the temporary tattoo stand.

”Look,” he says and grabs Ian by the hand, steering him closer to the myriad of black and white pictures printed out and taped to the table, ”that bird is just like yours!”

”Almost,” Ian indulges him and lets himself get pulled closer. Mickey snorts at Ian’s weak resistance to his kid’s wily ways, ’cause Mickey doesn’t have to be a bird-nerd to see that not one of the available options look anything like Ian’s swallow.

”Can I have one?” Yevgeny asks, holding on to Ian’s hand with both of his own when he turns to look up at him. Ian opens his mouth to presumably turn him down but doesn’t get the chance. ”Please, Ian? I want one just like yours.”

”Well,” Ian hesitates, looking over to Mickey for guidance.

”Don’t look at me,” Mickey says, holding up his hands, ”you wanna pay for it, you pay for it. And then you pay for the laser treatment, too, when this gateway sticker tattoo crap leads to him turnin’ up with half his chest inked up at fifteen.”

Ian’s uncertainty turns into a wide grin throughout Mickey’s little rant and Mickey rolls his eyes at his sappy-ass boyfriend because, yeah, he knows exactly what he’s saying and what he must sound like right now. Whatever, Mickey’s not afraid to tell a guy how he feels, and it shouldn’t come as a fucking surprise at this point that he’s looking to keep Ian around for as long as he can.

”Deal,” Ian agrees and nods down at Yevgeny, who lets go of his hand with a victorious whoop and latches on to his leg in a big hug.

”If only they’d done knuckle tats,” Mickey mutters and follows them around the table to get in line, ”no fucking way I would’ve folded this easily.”

Dumb waste of money or not, even Mickey thinks it’s kinda worth it when Yevgeny settles in on the fold-out lawn chair set up behind the booth and he grins up at Ian like he’s the luckiest fucking kid in the world when the tattoo guy holds down the wet sticker to his upper arm, theatrically counting out the required waiting time. Ian crouches down by the chair to inspect it when it’s done, nodding his approval, and Yevgeny looks so happy it almost hurts a little when he turns his head to smile at Mickey.

”Gonna look real badass,” Ian decides as he rolls up the sleeves on his tee, folding them up all the way past Yevgeny’s little bony shoulders to make sure everyone can see his awesome new ink.

”How do I look, dad?” Yevgeny beams up at him, sliding off the chair and flexing his skinny arms.

”Fucking badass, kid,” Mickey agrees and ignores the shocked gasp from someone in line behind them when Yevgeny laughs and mirrors Mickey’s pose, crossing his arms and forcing his eyebrows into a scowl, only slightly ruined by the way he immediately breaks into another wide smile.

Ian pays the sticker man and they leave, Yevgeny leading the way and Ian smiling softly at Mickey as he pockets his wallet and falls into step with him. Mickey feels a little on edge, the stares of the prim couple behind them in line kinda burning holes into the back of his neck. But the shadow on his mind disperses entirely when Ian rests an arm over his shoulders and keeps it there, walks next to him with a kind of easy carelessness Mickey envies him, and fucking loves about him. He probably doesn’t even notice the stares, or the whispers, or maybe he just doesn’t give a fuck. 

Yevgeny definitely doesn’t notice anything, grabbing on to his own elbow while he walks to try and twist his arm so he can look at his new tattoo, Mickey keeping a close eye on him just in case he trips on something or walks into someone.

”He looks like you,” Ian says, eyes trained on Yevgeny when Mickey throws him an incredulous look, ”as a kid.”

Mickey scoffs and rolls his shoulders, Ian’s arm just rolling right along with it. ”The fuck do you know about it?”

”Oh, I know,” Ian says and Mickey can hear the smile in his voice, sees it when he glances sideways at him, ”I remember you.”

”Like shit you remember me from when we were kids,” Mickey calls his bluff, narrowing his eyes over Yevgeny almost bumping into a large lady dressed in a huge flower-print dress, and frowns when he feels Ian shrug, ”you’re lying.”

”Sure,” Ian’s voice is dripping with sarcasm, ”I’m lying. And you never pissed on first base.”

Mickey feels a wide grin cracking through his frown, he _did_ piss on first base. It was the crowning glory of his disastrous Little League career.

”Who told you that?” he asks, still refusing to believe that Ian’s not talking outta his ass. It’s like electricity shooting up his spine when Ian leans in, his breath tickling over his ear.

”I was playin’ second,” he says, his voice low and his dry lips barely brushing against Mickey’s skin in a quick kiss before he leans back and speaks up, ”hey Yevy, where do you stand on the issue of ice cream?”

”What?” Yevgeny asks, stopping dead in his track to turn around and look back at them, clearly confused by Ian’s question but intrigued enough by the mention of ice cream to stop staring at his tattoo for a second.

”Ice cream,” Ian repeats, little lights turning on in Yevgeny’s eyes, ”want some?”

”Dumb fucking question,” Mickey says and shrugs off Ian’s arm, pointing over at an empty bench under a tree, a little off to the side, ”I’ma go sit down, get me something good.”

”Popsicle?” Ian calls out after him, laughing when Mickey throws him the finger over his shoulder. 

He smiles to himself as he walks over to the tree and sits down on the bench, spreading his knees and resting his arms over the back. He scans the crowd and immediately singles out Ian’s shoulders, slightly hunched over in order to hold on to Yevgeny’s hand, walking over to the little ice cream hut next to the merry-go-round. Mickey watches them lazily, enjoying the quiet moment and getting to just observe his son gesturing wildly as he explains something, Ian nodding like he’s being told the fucking secret of the universe or some shit. 

Then the shrill, happy scream of a little girl cuts through Mickey’s focus and he tears his eyes off his family to watch her run past him, a couple of kids chasing after. She’s dressed in all white, grass and mud strains worked into the fabric after a long day of play, and her face is painted like a white rabbit, long ears swaying on top of her head as she disappears out of sight.

”Dad!”

Mickey frowns and turns back to search out his son again at the sound, reason telling him it could be any kid yelling for their dad, but something cold and tense inside him insisting that this is exactly how Yevgeny sounds when he’s upset. He’s out of his seat and running the second he spots them, Yevgeny standing alone and Ian pushing someone against the wall of the ice cream hut, the carnival crowd forming a cautious circle around the scene.

Breaking through it, Mickey grabs on to his son’s shoulders and pulls him in, crouching down to get a good look at his face.

”You okay?” Mickey asks, not too worried now that he’s got his hands on the kid and can tell that he’s fine, but not missing the tears shining in his wide eyes. Yevgeny is clearly upset but he nods, because he knows the difference between okay and _okay_. 

”I’m scared,” he says and Mickey nods too, they talk about this every time he has a bad dream. _It’s okay to be scared_. Mickey gently wipes his thumbs under Yevgeny’s eyes, and then looks over at Ian. He’s got this _guy_ pressed against the wall still, one hand on his chest and the other clamped over his throat. He’s breathing like a bull, shoulders tense and shaking.

”Stay close,” Mickey tells his son and gives him a quick nod before he stands up and walks over to Ian, raising a placating hand when the stranger lets out a choking sound and shoots him a distressed look.

”Ian,” Mickey says, doing his best to ignore the rising panic in the stranger’s eyes as he turns his focus on Ian, ”hey, easy.”

He’s close enough now to see most of Ian’s face, his eyes wide and clear with rage, lips pressed together into a thin line and nostrils flaring around his heavy breathing. He barely acknowledges Mickey’s presence, but shifts his stance and flinches a little when Mickey says his name.

”Easy,” Mickey says again, trying to calm the tremor in his voice and focus on Ian, ”Ian, look at me.”

Ian blinks and flits his eyes to Mickey and then back at the guy, tightening the grip on his throat.

”We’re cool,” Mickey tries and carefully puts his hand over Ian’s, he can feel the guy gulping for air under it, ”everything’s cool.”

He can feel Ian slowly relaxing, his face falling from mindless anger into confusion. Mickey takes a step closer so he’s sure he’s within Ian’s view, and lets go of his hand to touch his shoulder instead, rub it soothingly and carefully move it up to squeeze the back of his neck.

”You’re scaring Yev,” Mickey tells him, voice low, and quickly steps in between Ian and the stranger when Ian suddenly drops his hands.

”Mickey?” Ian’s staring at him like he isn’t sure if he’s real, eyes suddenly shining up with tears and widening with realization.

”Jesus Ian,” Mickey exhales, ”what the fuck?”

”Don’t know,” Ian’s breathing like he’s having a fucking panic attack, ”I don’t-, I thought-, his face _changed_ , he-, fuck.”

He looks down at his shaking hands and Mickey only barely catches his quiet, desperate whisper. 

”What’s happening?”

Mickey rubs at his bent neck and glares at some of the people still standing around, staring at Ian breaking down like they got nothing better to do.

”Alright, fuckin’ show’s over,” he barks at them, shooing with his hand, before he spares the recovering victim of Ian’s attack a slightly less hostile glance, ”you okay, man?”

The guy looks confused and he’s still massaging his throat, but he nods.

”We gonna have a problem here?” Mickey asks, not really interested in airing Ian’s mental problems with some random outside a fucking ice cream hut but at the same time aware that the guy is well within his rights to press charges if he feels like it. He’s got plenty of witnesses.

”I’m fine,” the guy croaks and glances at Ian, ”is he okay?”

Mickey closes his eyes for a second in relief and he pulls Ian in a little closer, absently raking his fingertips through the hairs on the back of his neck, and then he gives the guy a tightlipped smile.

”Yeah,” he says, nodding at him, ”he’s fucking fine. Thanks.”

The guy nods back, not looking entirely convinced but that’s his fucking problem. Mickey ignores him turns his attention to Ian, wrapping his arm more fully around his shoulders, pulling him in for a hug and pressing his lips against the side of his neck. He closes his eyes when he feels Yevgeny by his elbow, pressing his face into his leg.

”Hey kid,” he sighs and pulls back just enough to look down and meet Yevgeny’s anxious eyes.

”Is Ian okay?” Yevgeny whispers, his little fists balling into the fabric of Mickey’s worn jeans. At the brittle sound of his voice Ian suddenly reacts, taking a step back and tilting his face up to the sky to quickly wipe at his cheeks before he crouches down with a surprisingly easy smile.

”I’m great, Yevy,” he says and he sounds good, but Mickey can hear the slightly too chipper tone for what it is, ”sorry I scared you.”

”It’s okay to be scared,” Yevgeny tells him, looking like he doesn’t know what else to say.

”I know,” Ian agrees and holds out his arms, Yevgeny only hesitating for a second before he walks over and lets Ian hug him, wrapping his little arms around his neck when Ian picks him up.

Mickey eyes them warily, not because he doesn’t trust Ian with his kid but because he thinks they really should talk about what the fuck just happened and it’s starting to look like Ian’s just gonna ignore the whole thing and move on. Put on a smile and pretend it didn’t happen. 

”You wanna go on the merry-go-round?” Ian asks, shifting Yevgeny to his side and holding on to him like he isn’t planning on letting go for a good long while.

”No,” Yevgeny shakes his head but he’s looking a lot less worried now, picking up on Ian’s sudden mood change without any of Mickey’s reservations, ”wanna go home.”

”Okay.”

Ian carries him all the way home, a solid twenty minute walk, and he talks to Yevgeny the whole time about this and that, the movie and his tattoo and all sorts of crap, Mickey walking next to them and barely listening, thoughts spinning. When they turn the corner onto Mickey’s street, Yevgeny struggles out of Ian’s hold and runs ahead, full of energy after being carried and any worry from before completely forgotten.

”Ey, elevator and then wait, alright?” Mickey shouts after him, Yevgeny yelling out a quick ’alright!’. He’s just tall enough to reach the keypad if he stands on his toes and does a little jump to get to the ’2’, punching in the buzz code, so of course he’s gotta make sure that he gets to the door first every time they come home. Mickey doesn’t want him riding the elevator on his own though, so he’s only allowed to push the button for it but not get on it, even if the doors are closing and it’s going back up before Mickey’s had the time to catch up.

They don’t have a lot of rules like that, but it’s still astronomically more than Mickey ever had when he was growing up. Mickey considers it his fatherly duty to make sure Yevgeny is safe at all times and the rules they do have are mostly about staying away from dangerous places and dangerous people. He kinda hates himself for it, but Mickey can’t help wondering where Ian fits into that, now. 

Mickey glances at the side of Ian’s face as they walk up to his building, Ian’s gaze trained somewhere far down the street, his shoulders relaxed and a calm smile curving his lips.

”You okay?” Mickey asks and frowns when Ian looks at him, still smiling lightly.

”Yeah, Mick,” he says and touches Mickey’s arm to stop them and take Mickey’s face in his hands, fingers curling gently around his neck and thumbs caressing his cheeks, ”I’m fine, I promise. It was nothing.”

”Nothing,” Mickey repeats, stunned, ”Ian-”

”I’m sorry I scared you,” Ian cuts him off as though he’s still talking to Yevgeny, as though _being scared_ is Mickey’s main issue with what happened, ”you don’t have to worry about me.”

”Don’t have to-,” Mickey sighs and feels his hands automatically land on Ian’s sides, clutching on to the fabric of his shirt, ”don’t really got a fucking choice here, Ian.”

”I’m sorry,” Ian whispers again, pulling their faces together and touching his forehead to Mickey’s, ”won’t happen again.”

Mickey wants to insist that he doesn’t know that, wants to insist that they gotta talk about it and plan for when it does, _if_ it does, make sure they both know what to do. He wants to tell Ian about how he isn’t scared for himself, but how terrified he is for Yevgeny, and how lousy that makes him feel. He also really doesn’t want to tell him, and he _doesn’t_ tell him. He lets himself be soothed by Ian’s presence, distracted by his lips, wrapped up in his arms. Ian is warm and firm and Mickey finds that it’s easy to forget his worries when he’s being held, in a way no one ever held him before Ian came along. Whatever happens, they can deal.

It was nothing. It won’t happen again. It was probably nothing and it probably won’t happen again.

They spend the rest of the evening watching TV, too exhausted to do anything else. They heat up leftovers from yesterday for dinner and Mickey carries Yevgeny to bed after he falls asleep halfway through his second video. Ian’s lying down on the couch when he returns, picking himself up enough to let Mickey sit down and turn into his personal fucking human pillow. Mickey gently combs his fingers through Ian’s hair and flips through the channels, eventually leaving it on ESPN just to have some kind of background noise. He lights a cigarette, even though he tries not to smoke in the apartment, and lets go of Ian’s hair when he turns to lie on his back and blink up at Mickey.

Mickey pulls on the cigarette and holds it out between two fingers, blowing out smoke from the side of his mouth. Ian doesn’t say anything but he accepts the cigarette and closes his eyes when he puts it to his lips and sucks on it, leaves it to hang there as smoke billows out around it.

Sighing contently, Mickey slouches down a little and leans his head back on the couch, stares at the dark ceiling and colorful flickering light from the TV. He thinks of this morning like it happened a year ago and he thinks he’s the biggest asshole alive when he feels relieved, realizing that he didn’t get the chance to ask Ian to move in, yet.

 _It’s okay to be scared_ , Mickey thinks and doesn’t move his head when Ian’s hand comes into view, holding up the cigarette. He takes it and taps some of the ashes off behind the couch, thinking he’ll clean it up later but probably won’t, and puts the cigarette to his lips. He puffs at it and he feels Ian’s solid presence under his hands, one resting on his slowly rising and falling chest, the other back in his hair, fingertips running over his warm scalp.

This was gonna be the day, but it doesn’t feel right.

He’s not ready.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments and support, you move me <3


	4. July 14, 1999

July 14, 1999

 

Mickey checks the time again and is surprised to see that it’s already four PM. The whole day has been moving at snail pace, but this last half hour almost didn’t feel like hell on earth at all, so that’s something. He turns off his computer and grabs his suit jacket, his chair spinning gently behind him as he’s crossing the office. He can tell that Martha is side eying him from her desk when he picks out his time card and slots it into the machine, punching out for the day.

”You’re leaving?” she asks, hands moving from her keyboard and folding together over her stomach when Mickey pauses by her desk on his way out, cringing on his jacket.

”Yeah,” he says, flipping up his collar and then quickly turning it down again, rolling his shoulders in the ill-fitting polyester garment, ”cashing in some overtime this week, tryna get home early. Got the kid, gotta pick him up from daycare.”

Martha looks surprised, swiveling slightly from side to side in her chair. ”Doesn’t your wife usually have Yev-jenny on weekdays?”

Mickey rolls his eyes at her butchering his son’s name but doesn’t correct her, he would probably be the first to forget her kids’ names if she had any.

”Ex-wife,” he says instead, for some reason more bothered by her still thinking of Svetlana as his significant other.

”Sure, right,” Martha makes an unconvincingly embarrassed face, ”still, my question stands.”

Mickey shrugs and checks his inner pocket for his wallet and the flat pack of smokes wedged in behind it. ”Yeah, she does. Not this week though.”

Smiling a little despite probably trying to look annoyed, Martha shakes her head and leans forward in her chair to start typing again.

”You’re a master over-sharer, Milkovich,” she says, sparing him a glance even while her fingers still tap-dance over the keys. Mickey ignores the comment because she’s not exactly wrong, and Mickey’s pretty proud of that fact. He likes Martha, she’s sarcastic and she hates Anderson on twelve almost as much as he does, and most of the time she doesn’t expect him to open up to her about his personal life, just like she doesn’t really open up to him. They’re work buddies, he’s got no interest in telling her any of his woes that don’t happen to be about toner-spills or paper-jams.

”Oh and,” he starts and stops, touching his hand lightly over his lips but not quite able to hide his smirk, before he reaches out and points towards her, ”Anderson’s been emailing me since lunch about his AC being on the fritz and I’ve been ignoring him, so tell him I said ’hi’ when he snaps and comes up here to bitch about it.”

Mickey raises his other hand in an innocent shrug when Martha sits back with a groan, grinning as he hurries out the door and only narrowly escapes being hit in the head by a balled up A4.

”Asshole!”

”See ya tomorrow!”

Walking down the corridor to the elevator, he can feel his smile slip almost immediately. For a second there he hadn’t been thinking about Sunday at all and now the anxiety and worry seem to flood back in, tenfold. He unclips his phone from his belt and checks it, but there are no new missed calls. No messages.

The elevator dings and he gets on it, pushes the button for the garage and stares at the numbers over the shiny steel doors, quickly counting down his descent. 16, 15, 14, 13, 12- he sighs to himself when the elevator slows to a halt and the doors slide open, only to perfect his fucking day by revealing the permanently snotty-assed mug of Anderson, he of the twelfth floor and with seemingly little else to do there than bug custodial about all the things wrong in his life. Which usually seems to be _everything_.

”Going down,” Mickey snaps and hits the button to close the doors again. They react pretty quickly but Anderson is quicker, his hands flying out of the pockets of his carefully tailored slacks to grab the doors and force them back.

”Do you know what day it is, Milkovich?” he says, narrowing his eyes at Mickey.

Mickey crosses his arms and picks up his eyebrows, and decides to humor the guy for exactly thirty seconds. ”Wednesday.”

”Wednesday,” Anderson’s eyes widen a little as he steps closer and leans with his elbow against the trapped elevator door, blocking it when it has another lame go at closing, ”it’s also the fourteenth, and July, and almost 90 degrees outside.”

”Is it?” Mickey feigns ignorance. He had a nice lunch in the park, finding some shade on a bench under a large oak tree, checking his phone every twenty seconds. Taking off his suit jacket and rolling up his sleeves, loosening his tie, it’d been the highpoint of his day so far. ”The AC’s on in my office, man, you should try it. It helps.”

Anderson’s practically got steam coming out of his ears and now Mickey can see the pit stains crawling out across his chest, only barely hidden by the lapels of his dark grey blazer. Tough day to wear a powder blue shirt. Mickey doesn’t mind a good pit stain, thinks it’s kinda sexy when Ian’s been for a run and drips all over the place, or the commute’s been heavy and he comes home disheveled and smiling like the sight of Mickey alone somehow makes a long day at work a little better. Anderson is a prim little yuppie clown who’d probably stop eating pussy half-way through if he found a hair on it.

” _And_ , it’s like a hundred degrees in my office,” Anderson grits out, probably not even aware that Mickey isn’t really listening anymore, ”it’s starting to seriously affect my work!”

Mickey jerks out his arm enough to get his sleeve to slip up a little, holding it up as he spins his watch around until he can see the face of it. It sure feels like his thirty seconds of patience is up, and anyway he needs to be at Yevgeny’s preschool in twenty minutes. He looks back up at Anderson and makes sure he’s got his undivided attention before he pushes off the wall and steps towards him. Mickey doesn’t even have to touch the guy for him to get the idea, stepping back when Mickey gets within an arm’s reach, almost like Mickey’s got some kinda forcefield pushing him away from the elevator and away from him.

”My office hours are between nine and four this week, pit stain,” Mickey informs him, pressing his lips together to stop from smirking when he hits the button and juts out his chin a little as the doors start sliding shut over Anderson’s reddened, sweaty face, ”you got an urgent matter, you’re welcome to take it up with Jones.”

He thinks he can hear Anderson calling him something that’s likely meant to cause great offense, right when the doors close, but Mickey just picks up his eyebrows and steps back, leaning against the mirror behind him as the elevator starts moving again. Glancing sideways at his reflection he expects to see the near permanent scowl that usually crowns his head when he’s forced to spend any time on twelve, but that’s not what he gets. He’s got heavy bags under his eyes, shiny and red around the edges, his skin somehow paler than normal under the sharp white spotlights sunk into the elevator ceiling. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. He rubs the moisture from his eyes and steps up to his reflection, crossing his arms as he stares at himself, fighting to harden his features. 

If he can’t get himself under some fucking control soon they’re gonna start thinking he’s coming to work high or something, and he really can’t afford being fired right now. He shouldn’t have talked to Anderson like that, the guy’s a complete twerp but he’s got his tongue firmly lodged up his boss’ ass and probably wouldn’t hesitate to pull some strings to get rid of Mickey if he ever slipped enough to give him any kind of reasonable grounds. Calling someone ’pit stain’ can hardly be considered reasonable grounds for termination, though, especially not when the pit stain in question decided to counter with what sounded a lot like a certain word rhyming with ’maggot’.

Mickey’s called a lot of people faggot, when he was younger and didn’t care to mind his words, but he’s pretty sure he knows enough to know that there’s a difference between him saying it and someone like Anderson using it as an easy slur to throw at him, at work no less. There’s gotta be some kinda law against that shit, 5, 4, 3, or at least some kinda social decorum.

Sighing and putting a hand to the mirror to cover his face, Mickey pushes away from it and leans back against the far wall again, grabbing on to the polished steel handrail behind him and staring up at the steadily blinking numbers. 2, 1, G, B. The elevator dings and the doors slide open, a weak gust of the stale basement air flowing through the small chamber and around Mickey when he steps out, walking quickly through the echoing garage. He takes out his cigarettes, he’s got two left and both are a little worse for wear in the flattened cardboard box, and he fishes one of them out to stick it to his lips, cursing around it when he notices that his lighter is gone. Patting himself over any and all areas of his body with storage, chest, sides, thighs, ass, he finally finds it under his keys in his left pants pocket. He’s lit up and smoked half his fucking cigarette down by the time he reaches his car, parked in one of the spare spots in a far corner of the vast garage.

He cranks a window open and sits in the car for a minute, smoking and staring at the green display of his phone, the blocky letters telling him it’s 4:14 and he has no new missed calls, no messages. 4:15. He gives the cigarette one last pull as he turns the ignition and then throws the butt out the half open window, before he backs out and creeps through the garage and out onto the streets. 

He spends the ten minute drive trying to find a distracting station on the radio, cursing and changing it every other minute when they insist on playing something he doesn’t wanna hear, or talk about something so boring it could lull him to sleep mid-traffic. And he fiddles with the AC at every red light or brief congestion, ignoring his silent cellphone on the seat next to him and trying to get a good breeze going, airing out most of the cigarette smoke in anticipation of Yevgeny’s company. He ain’t about to quit smoking, and Svetlana does more to stink up the car with her menthols, but ever since the little squirt graced them with his presence five years ago Mickey’s generally become the person to insist that some stuff doesn’t fly ’around the baby’. In fact, it was Mickey who had to bitch and moan about Svetlana smoking like a chimney while she was still breastfeeding, as it was Mickey who had to baby-proof the Armory and enforce upon the whole family that they stop leaving their fucking Uzis on the coffee table. He’s even gone as far as getting rid of all his old weapons, save for one semi-automatic Smith & Wesson that he paid for and everything, locked up in a safe under his bed and only there for situations that can’t be resolved with the baseball bat hanging on a nail next to his bedroom door.

So Mickey is pretty much father of every fucking year at this point, and he tires to remind himself of that as he turns into Sunny Side Up’s half-full parking lot, the gravel rumbling under his tires. The staff is fine, they’re used to him by now even though Svetlana usually is the one dropping off and picking up, but he could do without the other parents giving him varying degrees of the same kinda hoity-toity stink-eye, starting at his feet and lingering by his knuckles, meeting his eyes with an unembarrassed head shake, turning up their noses and pretending they aren’t being rude-ass dickbags judging him by a bunch of groundless rumors and a few ill-advised words he might have shared with the group at an early orientation meeting (he’d been making a really good point, honestly, but in hindsight he can maybe admit that he could have cranked down the swearing just a little).

Whatever, they don’t know him and he doesn’t know them and the world keeps on fucking spinning anyway.

He gets out of the car and heads towards the loud, happy screeching of children playing, catching a glimpse of a few of them through the tall chicken wire fence as he moves through the parking lot and the playground behind the two story daycare building comes into view. 

”Mr Milkovich!” 

Mickey sighs but forces a tightlipped smile and a slight nod, heading over to the gate where Adam jogs up to let him in. Mickey’s got the code, he could’ve let himself in just fine.

”Mickey,” Adam says, redundantly, and swings the gate open, smiling wide and his chest heaving a little from the short sprint, ”what’s up?”

Mickey walks past him and can’t help shooting the guy an incredulous look, eyebrows hitched up high. ”Here to pick up my kid.”

”Yeah, of course,” Adam just smiles and closes the gate, gesturing towards the playground as they start walking that way, ”Yevgeny! Your daddy’s here!”

Mickey flinches at this sudden announcement, hiding his uncomfortable grimace as he scans the jungle gym and the large group of children milling around it like ants, trying to pick out his son’s unruly black hair from the short crowd. Adam’s always been obvious verging on inappropriate around Mickey but since he’s good with his kid and never flat out expressed his feelings or tried anything, Mickey’s just ignored it. It got a lot better when Ian came into the picture, when Yevgeny presumably started talking about him and Adam must have put two and two together. Presumably, Yevgeny must have talked about Ian now too, because Mickey’s got a siren going off at the back of his mind when Adam stops just a little closer to him than strictly necessary and throws him a smile screwed up to eleven. And here Mickey thought he’d never have to deal with this bullshit again.

”Full time daddy this week, huh?” Adam comments, sounding like he’s about to break out in song or some shit, he’s so fucking full of glee. Mickey stops looking for his son long enough to glance at the guy, frown graduating to a full blown scowl when he sees his sappy smile and the slight tilt to his head, brown eyes crinkling and following Mickey’s every little movement.

That fucking word, _daddy_ , if it’s not coming outta his son’s mouth he doesn’t wanna hear it. Mickey crosses his arms and turns back to look for Yevgeny, silently urging the kid to hurry the fuck up so they can go home already.

”Sure,” he says, when the silence starts to loom and it’s clear that Adam’s waiting for him to respond, ”Svet decided she wanted some quality time with her girlfriend, I guess.”

”Cool,” Adam says and sways a little closer, Mickey shrugging his shoulders up and taking a step to the side to get out of his immediate presence. ’Cool’ isn’t exactly the word Mickey would use, more like ’meddling bitch thinks she knows what’s up and is subtle like a fucking rhino tryna distract Mickey by changing their whole schedule around and saddling him with their kid for an extra week’, which is exactly thirty-two words more than one, but whatever, Mickey is nothing if not _precise_. 

”Dad!”

Mickey turns his head to see Yevgeny come running around the corner of the main building, balling his fists up and working his little arms as he picks up speed and charges towards them. Mickey manages about two steps before the kid barrels straight into his legs, almost toppling them over on impact.

”Hey kid,” he says and feels most of his worry and relentless anxiety take a step back to let some kinda calm and peace wash over him, Yevgeny’s small shoulders under his hands, his soft hair between his fingers as he ruffles through it. _Everything’s gonna be fine._

”Did he call?” Yevgeny asks, stepping back and grabbing on to one of Mickey’s hands, looking up at him with his icy blue eyes full of awful, beautiful hope.

”Not yet,” Mickey says and only now notices Yevgeny’s bare feet when the kid bows his head in disappointment, ”the fuck are your shoes, man?”

”Oh,” fucking Adam decides to chime in, ”he didn’t want to put them on, so I thought-”

Mickey’s annoyed sigh cuts him off, his flirty little smile slipping when Mickey glares at him. ”So you thought he could just run around fucking barefoot?”

”Well, it’s a nice day-,” Adam tries, sounding like he thinks Mickey’s being terribly unfair, well tough fucking shit Mickey’s being unfair, he’s exhausted and worried and sad and the one thing he thought he could count on was his kid being safe at this Fort fucking Knox of a preschool. 

Sunny would never have let this shit slide. Bitch just had to go get knocked up and leave operations in the hands of someone who thinks _nice weather_ stops people from being asshole junkies and drunks, and seeing a tall fence as a challenge to throw glass bottles and needles over it just hoping to make someone else’s life a little more miserable. Okay neighborhood or not, Mickey’s been one of those miserable people and a six foot fence never stopped him from trying to ruin everyone else’s fun.

He feels about ready to fucking pop when Yevgeny tugs at his hand and pulls his attention away from Adam’s infuriating face, the guy practically squirming under Mickey’s silent disapproval, just waiting for the onslaught to start.

”Alright,” Mickey sighs, anger slowly ebbing at the sight of Yevgeny’s worried frown, ”let’s go grab your stuff and get the fuck home, buddy.”

”I’m sorry Mickey,” Adam apologizes behind them, raising his voice a little as they walk away, ”won’t happen again!”

Mickey holds on to Yevgeny’s hand and they go inside, beelining for Yevgeny’s cubbyhole where he helps the kid up to sit on the long bench stretching through the cluttered vestibule. 

”Put your jacket on,” Mickey narrates as he pulls out Yevgeny’s bright blue windbreaker and helps him thread his arms through the sleeves, ”and shoes.”

”No,” Yevgeny says, folding in his legs under the bench, hiding his grass-stained feet when Mickey re-emerges from the depths of his cubby with two small sandals in his hand.

”Not this again,” Mickey sighs and drops the sandals to the floor in front of Yevgeny, pointing at them with his whole hand, ”put them on or I’ma do it for you.”

”No!” Yevgeny yells, going from one to a hundred in a second flat. ”Not you!”

”Yeah, well,” Mickey says, trying to keep his voice level as he crosses his arms, ”me’s all you got right now.”

”I want Ian to do it!” Yevgeny insists, kicking out a foot that only misses Mickey’s shin by an inch when Mickey tries to move in on him. 

”Jesus,” Mickey pulls a hand over his face, he can hear his voice shaking under the anger he’s not managing to cover, ”this is so fucking stupid.”

”You’re stupid!” Yevgeny yells, kicking at him again. ”I want Ian! Ian! Ian! Ian!”

”Ian ain’t here! Fuck!” Mickey yells back, regretting it instantly when Yevgeny cowers back at the tone of his voice, eyes wide and shiny and mouth hanging slack. Mickey really fucking tries to never raise his voice at the kid, knowing exactly what it’s like to live with someone so much bigger than yourself, yelling and angry and dangerous, just waiting for an excuse to slap you around.

He steps back and turns around, scrubbing angrily at his face with the palms of his hands. He needs to snap out of it. He’s so scared and he hasn’t got a clue what’s going on, he can’t even imagine how Yevgeny is feeling right now. He takes a deep breath and turns back to his son, heart melting at his feet when he sees the big fat tears falling down Yevgeny’s red cheeks.

”Fuck,” Mickey breathes out and walks up to his kid, crouching down in front of him and grabbing on to the edge of the bench on either side of his knees. ”I’m sorry, little man, I’m really fuckin’ sorry.”

He wipes his thumb under Yevgeny’s eye and then the pads of his fingers down his other cheek, landing his wet hand on the kid’s bony knee, squeezing it gently.

”He’ll call,” he says and tries to sound like he really believes it, because he has to believe it, ”he’ll come back.”

Yevgeny sniffs and nods a little, snot hanging off the tip of his nose until he drags the back of his hand over it, smearing some of it out over his cheek.

”What’s that thing your mom always says?” Mickey tries, secretly admiring Svetlana’s no-nonsense way of comforting their son when all Mickey wants to do is bust some guilty skulls and like, cover the kid in teddybears whenever he starts crying. ”Besmock something, right?”

Yevgeny snorts at Mickey’s awful pronunciation. ”Bez muki net nauki.”

”Yeah, that,” Mickey grins at his son, who seems stuck somewhere between being sad and rolling his eyes at his dumb old dad, ”what does it mean again?”

Yevgeny frowns, like he hasn’t ever really thought about it. ”There’s no flour, and no nauki… science.”

”Well, guess that doesn’t really apply to this situation,” Mickey huffs, raising his eyebrows, ”or any situation. Are you sure? ’Cause I thought I was just bein’ an asshole all those times I ragged on your mom for not making any fucking sense, and this is the crap she’s been spewing at me?”

Yevgeny just shrugs and looks down at his hands, toying with the hem of his shirt. Mickey decides to ask Svetlana about it instead, later.

”Whatever,” he says and smiles a little when Yevgeny looks up at him again, ”point is Ian _loves_ you, okay? You got him all wrapped around your little finger, kid, there’s no fucking way he’s gonna be able to stay away for long.”

”He promised,” Yevgeny’s voice is quiet and he bows his head again, shoulders slumped.

”Yeah,” Mickey sighs, picking up a hand to gently push Yevgeny’s short fringe to the side, ”I know.”

”Sorry I yelled, daddy,” Yevgeny mumbles, not looking up as he apologizes. It always takes Mickey by surprise when he does, it’s one of those things Svetlana has enforced on their son with little to no help from Mickey’s weak-hearted ass. No one ever apologizes for anything in his family.

”That’s okay,” Mickey says and lets go of the bench with a hand so he can rub it over his bottom lip, trying to think of a way to cheer up his kid a little, ”know what? Fuck shoes, right? You can hitch a ride on me.”

Mickey is almost knocked on his ass when Yevgeny perks up and immediately scrambles up to stand on the bench, raising his arms when Mickey grabs the kid’s sandals with one hand and straightens up, leaning back down a little to capture his son in a big hug, picking him up.

He holds him tight and lets out a low sigh when he feels Yevgeny’s arms lock around his neck, his snotty little face for sure making a mess of the shoulder of his jacket and his legs dangling free, toes tapping gently against Mickey’s thigh. And he just holds his son for a little while, maybe more for his own sake than anything else, before he adjusts his grip, moving the hand still holding Yevgeny’s sandals to hook under his butt and shuffle him to the side, settling him on his hip and leaning back a little to look him in the face.

”Ready to go?” he asks and mirrors Yevgeny when the kid nods. ”Grab your bag?”

Yevgeny squirms this way and that, looking around himself to try and spot his little backpack, and yelps out a startled laugh when Mickey tightens his grip and dips him backwards until he’s almost completely upside down, hair and arms hanging free.

”Jackpot!” Mickey cheers when Yevgeny spots his bag and reaches out towards it, misjudging the distance a little in his disoriented state. Mickey steps them closer and tips them down enough for Yevgeny to grab the handle, the kid groaning and sagging to the side when they struggle to straighten back up with the added weight.

Mickey takes the bag from him and pretends to lose his balance, stepping sideways and the bag almost hitting the floor with its overwhelming pretend weight. Yevgeny giggles and clamps on to Mickey’s side and neck with both legs and arms, only loosening his grip a little once Mickey regains his balance and holds up the bag.

”Whatcha got in here, huh?” Mickey asks him, leaning back some to take in Yevgeny’s smiling face, raising his eyebrows at him. ”You stealin’?”

Yevgeny rolls his eyes and shakes his head. ”Just borrowed.”

”Just borrowed, okay,” Mickey huffs and hitches the bag over his shoulder, the short strap only barely fitting around his arm as he walks them out the door, ”sure, guess I better start savin’ up for the day when they’re callin’ me from jail, asking me to bail out your clepto ass for ’borrowing’ a Porsche 911.”

”Okay,” Yevgeny humors him because barely five and the kid is already an expert at tuning him out when Mickey starts sassing him. He’s a smart kid.

”Yeah, okay,” Mickey agrees, steering them towards the gate. He ignores Adam’s long look from across the yard, catching a split second of the compassionate smile spreading on his face when he sees Mickey carrying both kid and shoes out the door. Mickey picks up his step and gets them through the gate and over to the car without interruption, buckling Yevgeny in on the passenger side and walking around the car to take his place behind the wheel.

”Radio?” he suggests and glances over at Yevgeny while he backs out of the narrow parking spot, turning the wheel tightly and twisting to look out the rear window. Yevgeny doesn’t answer, he just shakes his head and looks out the window at the rows of parked cars turning into rows of houses as they drive out on the street.

Mickey sits back a little and lets one hand rest on the gear shift, the other on top of the steering wheel while he slowly navigates through the heavy commuter traffic. 

”So what did you do today?” he tries because he knows that Svetlana is right, they both need to be distracted right now. He smirks a little when he stops at a red light and glances at his son long enough to see him shrug a shoulder. ”Really, man? That’s seven hours outta your day and you’ve done nothing? I should call Sunny and ask for a fucking refund.”

Yevgeny sighs but Mickey catches the beginning of a small smile before he has to check the rearview mirror and make a right turn.

”Colors,” Yevgeny eventually admits.

”Colors?” Mickey bites back a nasty insult at the Ford cutting into his lane, right in front of him, and blindly reaches out to nudge at Yevgeny’s shoulder with a knuckle. ”What’s that mean? You doin’ coloring books? Leaning all the names or some shit? Debatin’ our society’s deeply rooted problems with racism?”

Mickey smiles to himself as he makes another right turn and he hears Yevgeny’s low groan. ”No, dad. We made color circles, no, um-, color wheels.”

”Well shit, that’s some artsy stuff right there,” Mickey raises his eyebrows and nods his approval, ”like mixing colors and all that?”

”Mr Adam showed us how to paint rainbows,” Yevgeny even sounds a little excited now and Mickey can see him make a wide bow with his arm, in the corner of his eye.

”Bet he did,” Mickey smirks, ”did you pack up your drawings so I can see ’em when we get home?”

”No,” Yevgeny sighs, ”I left them in my drawer. They’re really big.”

Mickey sucks on his teeth and stops for a red light.

”Okay, Picasso,” he says and turns to look at Yevgeny, ”guess we’re gonna have to get up a little earlier tomorrow morning so you can show me these masterpieces when I drop you off. Does that sound like a plan?”

”Yeah, okay,” Yevgeny agrees with a genuine little smile, turning into an annoyed grimace when Mickey reaches out to ruffle his hair and playfully push at his head before shifting back to first gear and turning his attention back to driving.

”Oh-kay,” Mickey hums, ”what else?”

”Miss Tara learned us a song,” Yevgeny suddenly remembers after giving it some thought.

”Oh yeah?” Mickey nods, eyes on his side mirror while he’s switching lanes, ”what kinda song did she _teach_ you?” 

”ABC,” Yevgeny announces and immediately launches into an unprompted rendition. Mickey expected the usual ’Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ version all his teachers tried to push on him when he was a kid, but it’s not what he gets. Sure, the lyrics are kind of unavoidably the same but the melody is a little different, and not because Yevgeny is remembering it wrong either it turns out when he starts and stops a couple of times, tripping up on ’L M N O P’ but never altering his tune.

He sings the rest of the short ride home, annoyed when he doesn’t get it right and so pleased once he does that he plows through a whole string of encores, reciting all the letters again and again even as Mickey gets out of the car and opens the door on his side, crouching down and unbuckling him from his booster seat.

And he doesn’t stop or protest when Mickey puts on his sandals and helping him down on the ground lets him run ahead to punch in the code and open the door. Mickey grabs his phone and Yevgeny’s bag and follows him, catching up with the kid just as he stands on his tippy-toes to reach the elevator button and press it three times to the tune of ’X Y Z’.

Yevgeny disappears into his room the second they step inside their apartment and Mickey grabs a beer from the fridge and starts on dinner, thankful to switch one immediate distraction for another. He turns on the radio just to have some background noise, happily annoyed with some douchebag DJ talking about fucking Zippergate like it’s still news, not even trying to hide behind big words when he’s calling Lewinsky a whore in a way even Mickey thinks is really gross.

”Yeah, okay guy, like you wouldn’t’ve sucked the President’s dick if you got the chance,” he mutters to his boiling pasta and changes the station.

They eat dinner in companionable silence, Yevgeny eating the first half of his serving with enthusiasm and then picks listlessly at the second half, spinning the spaghetti on his fork only to pick it up and watch the noodles slip and fall back down on the plate. Mickey doesn’t tell him not to play with his food and puts his cold leftovers in with the rest as he does the dishes and packs his lunch for tomorrow. He puts the plastic container in the fridge and chews on his lip when he sees the cellophane-covered corner piece of cake sitting on the top shelf, the green food dye in the frosting starting to bleed into the yellow cake and making it look slightly unappetizing.

”Sure you don’t wanna eat the last piece?” he asks and turns around to raise his eyebrows at Yevgeny, still holding the fridge door open. ”We can share it? Get a new cake when he comes back.”

But Yevgeny doesn’t even look up when he shakes his head. ”No. It’s for Ian, he’s gonna want it when he comes home.”

Mickey thinks he maybe hits a new low when his kid says ’home’ like that. He sighs and closes the fridge again. He’ll put the piece in the freezer later, before he goes to bed.

He helps Yevgeny set up the VCR, puts on one of the many videos he’s got on endless rotation and plugs in the big headphones with the long cord, making sure they’re snug on Yevgeny’s head and that the volume isn’t too loud. He gives him a tentative thumbs up and smiles when Yevgeny returns the gesture. Then he grabs the folder hidden on the little shelf under the coffee table and takes it with him to the kitchen, where he sits down so he’s still got one eye on Yevgeny in the other room, sunk deep into the couch and eyes glued to the TV.

He opens the folder and picks up his cellphone, choosing the top number in his contact list. It disconnects right away, like it’s been doing for almost a week now. He tries the second number and is immediately greeted by Ian’s neutral voice.

_”You’ve reached Ian Gallagher, leave a message.”_

Mickey sighs and rests his forehead in his hand as he listens to the sharp beep.

”Ian,” he says and pulls his hand down his face to cover his eyes and support his suddenly heavy head as he speaks, ”today is Wednesday, this is my daily phone call. Whatever’s going on, could you just fucking let me know already so I don’t gotta sit here and think-”

Mickey sucks in a shallow breath and bites his lip to keep from saying something he’s been doing really fucking good _not saying_ so far.

”We miss you, I love you,” he says instead, closing his eyes at the sound of his own tired voice, ”please just call me.”

He hangs up and takes a moment to just sit there, before he clears his throat and wipes his hand quickly over his eyes, ignoring the light wetness shining on his almost sickly pale skin. He needs to get a proper night’s sleep, he feels like he’s turning grey. He picks up the phone again and rifles through the papers in the folder, pulling out a list of numbers.

He dials the first number and eyes on Yevgeny he listens to a kind voice telling him that ’his call is important’ and ’please stay on the line’, interspersed with something sounding almost but not exactly like real music.

_”You’ve reached Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, this is nurse Tod speaking, how may I help you?”_

”Yeah, hi,” Mickey starts and frowns, ”I’m calling about a missing person, his name is Ian Gallagher. Red hair, kinda blue-grey eyes, pale fucker. Five-eleven, hundred and sixty something pounds, twenty-three years old-”

 _”Sir,”_ the nurse interrupts him, _”is it right that you called in yesterday?”_

”Yeah, sure,” Mickey sighs, ”and the day before that, and the day before that, you get the idea.”

 _”That’s alright, sir,”_ the nurse says and suddenly he sounds a little less like an automaton, _”I took your call yesterday, that’s why I ask. I put in a file of your missing-, of Mr Gallagher in our system and sent out an alert to our network, and I wrote down your name and number and said to call if anyone matching his description shows up, alright?”_

Mickey sighs again and nods, even though that’s just a goddamned stupid thing to do when you’re on the phone with someone.

_”I’m sorry I don’t have any good news for you, sir.”_

”At least they ain’t bad,” Mickey tries to sound optimistic even though it leaves a pretty bad taste in his mouth, ”thanks.”

_”Have a good night sir, someone will give you a call if he turns up, I promise. You’re doing everything you can.”_

”Maybe,” Mickey mutters and hangs up. He’s gonna call again tomorrow.

He’s on hold with the fourth hospital on his list, none of them giving him squat in terms of new information, when there’s a sound at the door like someone’s trying to open it, handle working pointlessly up and down against the lock. Mickey glances at Yevgeny who hasn’t noticed anything and then calmly gets up from the table, taking a detour past his own room to reach in and grab the bat, hiding it down his side when he walks though the living room, just in case Yevgeny decides to look his way.

There’s a soft knock on the door when he reaches it. Mickey swings the bat up, grabbing the handle with both hands as he rests it against his shoulder and leans forward to peer out the peephole. It’s Ian. A distorted fish-eye version of Ian turning his head and looking nervously up and down the corridor, and then straight at Mickey like he can see through the dark, one-way lens. It’s Ian.

Mickey almost drops the bat he puts it down so quickly, catching it and carefully leaning it in the corner by the door so it won’t fall and catch Yevgeny’s attention. He feels his heart in his throat as he fumbles with the security chain and twists the lock, pausing for a split second with his hand on the knob before he pulls the door open.

Ian smiles when he sees him, and Mickey maybe meant to step out in the corridor and close the door behind them so he could tell the asshole exactly what he was feeling and figure out what the fuck was happening before Yevgeny caught on to Ian’s sudden arrival, but he doesn’t do any of that. He stares at Ian like he hasn’t seen him in a year, indulging in a pure moment of relief that _he isn’t dead_ and _he came back_ , taking in the way the nervous shake seems to drain out of Ian’s legs and his shoulders relax with his widening smile, his clear eyes roaming Mickey’s face and drinking him in, too. Parched and greedy.

”Ian,” Mickey breathes out and he accepts it without question when Ian steps over the threshold and pulls him into a crushing embrace, his arms automatically catching around Ian’s body and hands clutching on to the back of his t-shirt. It’s real, he’s here, he’s alive. ”Fuck.”

The dick has the nerve to laugh, chuckling against Mickey’s neck and squeezing him a little closer before he lets go completely and steps past Mickey and into the little hallway.

”Didn’t realize I don’t have a key until I got here,” Ian’s light tone is almost giving Mickey some kinda emotional whiplash, stuck staring at the empty air outside his door before he slowly shuts it and turns around to face his still smiling boyfriend, ”that’s weird right? Think I should have a key by now, maybe we can go make one when we get back.”

”Get back-, what?” And there it is; anger and confusion hand in hand, rolling up through Mickey’s body and clouding the relief and happiness he felt at seeing Ian after a long week of nothing. Mickey can physically feel his fucking heart breaking when Ian steps towards the living room. ”No, Ian. Fuck-, don’t.”

”Ian!” Yevgeny shouts out in joy from the couch and then Mickey hears the headphones fall to the carpet and the sound of little feet running across the floor.

He sees the side of Ian’s wide smile before he disappears out of view, arms spread wide. ”Hey kiddo! Oh.”

Mickey pulls a hand down his face and stays in the hallway for a second, listening to the sound of Ian picking up his kid and giving him a loud kiss on the cheek, Yevgeny giggling happily. Taking a deep breath Mickey steps up to the doorway and leans against the side, arms crossed as he watches the sweet reunion. 

Ian’s got his long arms wrapped around the boy, holding him up and close, Yevgeny’s legs clamped around his sides and arms around his neck as they’re swaying lightly from side to side.

”Sorry I couldn’t make it for your birthday party, Yevy,” Ian says, and Mickey can’t see his face but he sounds remorseful. Yevgeny’s smile contracts into an immediate pout and he leans back in Ian’s arms to make sure he sees it.

”You promised,” he reminds him, voice small and head bent.

”I know, I did,” Ian sighs and re-adjusts his grip a little, ”something came up and I had to get out of town, I didn’t want to. Can you forgive me?”

Yevgeny forces himself to pout for another second before he does the capital mistake of looking up and meeting Ian’s big, pleading eyes. He breaks instantly, scowl melting into a wide smile. ”I saved you some cake.”

”You did?”

”Yeah,” Yevgeny nods eagerly and then shoots Mickey a stern look, ”dad wanted to eat it but I said no. I knew you’d come home and you would want some. It’s green and yellow and red ’cause it’s got raspberry jam inside.”

”Sounds delicious, buddy,” Ian smiles wide when he twists a little to glance quickly at Mickey, before he turns back to give Yevgeny another loud kiss on the cheek, ”thank you.”

Yevgeny grins wide and touches his hands to Ian’s face, almost like he needs to check that it’s really him. Mickey knows the feeling.

”So, how does it feel? Becomin’ a world-weary five year old?” Ian asks and bounces him a little in his arms as though to test him out. ”Pretty sure you managed to grow a whole inch taller since I saw you last, and like, a ton heavier. You gotta stop that before you get too big for me to do this.”

Yevgeny laughs out loud when Ian pretends to drop him, only to catch him again right away, Yevgeny clinging on to him with arms and legs. Ian tuns and meets Mickey’s eyes over the kid’s shoulder.

”Hasn’t he grown?” he asks and hums when Mickey doesn’t answer, bowing his head so he won’t have to look at them anymore.

”Did you forget to buy me a present?” Yevgeny asks, suspicious now that the initial joy of seeing Ian again gives way for righteous birthday greed.

”I did not forget,” Ian laughs, ”but I did leave it in the car, so you’ll have to hang on and open it on the road.”

Mickey looks up and frowns at the back of Ian’s neck, at the way Yevgeny perks up.

”Where are we going?”

”Road trip, bud,” Ian says and sets Yevgeny down on the floor, crouching after him to get them on the same level again, ”thought we could go on a little vacation for the rest of the week, make up for lost time. What do you say?”

”Can we go to the lake?” Yevgeny asks, like it’s the epitome of travel destinations. They had a pretty perfect weekend at a lake house timeshare belonging to one of Ian’s colleagues a couple of weeks ago, attempting to swim in the still cold as fuck water and somehow managing to get a fire going in the pit on the shore by the rickety private pier, burning hotdogs and melting marshmallows and laughing at Ian’s seemingly bottomless well of dumb jokes. 

”The lake, upstate, out of state, out of country,” Ian promises wildly, ”wherever you wanna go, Yev. But we gotta leave right now so go pack your bag, okay?”

”Okay!” Yevgeny agrees, already running for his room and disappearing out of sight.

Mickey watches Ian stay crouched down on the floor for a few seconds, looking after the kid, before he slowly picks himself up and turns around with a bright smile, his soft eyes shifting to ten shades of wicked when he lands his gaze on Mickey. Mickey shakes his head at him and attempts to ignore him long enough to walk their oncoming argument into the kitchen and as far away from their kid as possible. His kid. Mickey’s goddamned kid, who’s been heartbroken for days thinking Ian didn’t love him, thinking Ian wasn’t coming back.

He’s caught halfway there, breath stuck in his throat when Ian’s big hands grab him by the arms and press him back against the wall, turning him to force them face to face. Mickey doesn’t put up a fight, his tired body lighting up in Ian’s presence and sagging under his touch, head falling back against the wall when Ian steps in even closer and brushes their lips together, tentatively. Mickey wants to tell him to stop but he can’t, he lets Ian kiss him just so he can have his taste and feel fresh in his memory after he inevitably does what he has to do, and possibly ends up ruining them forever.

Pressing his lips together he turns away from the kiss, opening his eyes when he feels Ian sigh against his cheek, breathing him in.

”Missed you,” Ian mumbles, ”I’m sorry.”

”Jesus, Ian,” Mickey winces and pushes at Ian’s chest to get some space, ”thought you were fucking dead. Bonnie called on Thursday, you weren’t at your place, you didn’t show up on Sunday, man. Yev was fucking devastated, you can’t bail on him like that, Ian, it doesn’t work that way.”

Ian huffs out an annoyed sigh and Mickey can sense how his nervous energy starts building again, thrumming through him from the slight shake in his left knee. ”I know, Mick-”

”Called you like forty fucking times between Bonnie callin’ and Yev blowing out his candles, one eye on the fucking door the entire time,” Mickey continues, blanking on all the things he’s imagined that he’d say to Ian once he decided to show up again, feeling like he can’t even begin to explain how tough the last week has been for him, for them. 

But having Ian here, he gets it. Mickey knew things wouldn’t always be as good as they’ve been the last few months, he’s not stupid. He knows bipolar isn’t just ups and downs and incidental moments of scary shit and worry they can afford to shrug off, he always knew there was a real possibility of something like this happening. Having Ian here, all he feels now is like he’s failed some kinda cosmic test for not noticing anything this time, for not knowing something had been up before Ian suddenly disappeared from one day to the next, leaving no note or explanation. 

He’d tried so hard to be what Ian needed, but it hadn’t been enough this time. 

”Gotta get you to a fucking hospital, Ian,” he says, trying his best to sound calm but forceful, ”now.”

There’s a flash of anger in Ian’s wide eyes but then he huffs out a laugh and grabs Mickey’s face, the way he does when he thinks Mickey worries too much, thumbs caressing his cheeks in an attempt to calm him down. ”I’m fine, I promise. I’ve been taking my pills-”

”Then they’re not fucking working!” Mickey exclaims, feeling tears prickling behind his eyes when Ian just smiles and leans in a little closer, only inches left between their faces.

”I’m not crazy, Mick,” he says emphatically, ”I got reckless and I did some pretty illegal shit, hacked a couple of government databases and didn’t cover my ass well enough, and I had to get the fuck outta dodge for a while. They had tabs on my phone so I had to ditch it, I tried coming here but they had a guy on you, too, I noticed him just in time and kept driving. I’m really fucking sorry but I didn’t have a choice, it had to be this way.”

”Ian-,” Mickey sighs and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath to keep himself from being pulled in by Ian’s persuasive enthusiasm and pleading eyes. He’s sick and delusions are part of that sickness, delusions and paranoia and mania. Mickey’s seen it in small fractions, but not like this. It’s over-powering and frightening and Mickey finds himself wishing he could just go along with it, believe him when Ian says he’s being bugged and hunted by the fucking government. 

”I couldn’t stay away,” Ian whispers, breath warm over Mickey’s face, ”I needed to see you. I was running outta meds, I came back for them, for you, I promise I’m not crazy. Come with me. Let’s just take off, a couple of days, a week, until they give up. Come on, please come with me, Mickey. I love you.”

Mickey nearly caves in he wants to say ’yes’ so bad, but he can’t.

”Love you, too,” he mutters and touches their foreheads together, ”but I can’t.”

He almost drops to the floor when Ian suddenly tears away from him. Wetting his lips nervously he desperately watches Ian pace back and forth in front of him, agitated and scratching at the back of his neck, eyes trained on the floor.

”Just think about what you’re sayin’ for one fucking second,” Mickey begs him, ”I can’t leave work, I need that job, especially now when you-”

He stops himself before he mentions the call he got from Bonnie yesterday, the one where Ian essentially got fired by proxy. Ian really doesn’t need to hear that right now, it’d probably just add fuel to the fire.

”Yevy’s got preschool,” he continues and frowns when Ian scoffs at his apparently weak argument, ”we’ve got a fucking life here, Ian, we can’t just up an leave like this.”

”And I can’t stay!” Ian exclaims and stops to look at Mickey with his eyebrows bunched up in a worried frown and his eyes glassy when he spreads his arms out in a wide, hopeless shrug. ”You gotta come with me, you love me, Mick. _I need you_. What if this doesn’t blow over, huh? What if I can’t come back? What does any of this-,” Ian pauses to gesture at Mickey’s living room, ”this _shit_ matter as long as we’re together?”

Mickey pushes off the wall and walks over to Ian, who takes a couple of steps back and bends his head when Mickey grasps him by the neck, holds him close and tries to catch his eye.

”Ian, listen,” Mickey tries to sound level but he knows that the desperation in his voice comes out sounding a lot like anger, ”you gotta trust me on this, no one’s after you. You’re safe. I just wanna take care of you, okay? Remember you told me about the angels, right? This is just like that, only the angels are wearing suits and shades, or whatever. They’re not real. I’m real, Yevgeny is real, and you made us think you left us, you know? That something happened to you and we’d never see you again. This isn’t sane, rational behavior, you gotta trust me, please Ian, you gotta believe me.”

Ian’s whole body heaves with a shaky sigh, and he tips his head back and blinks violently over the tears building in his eyes.

”You understanding what I’m sayin’ right now?” Mickey asks, squeezing Ian’s neck in reassurance. ”You hearing me?”

Ian nods and then lets his head fall back down, burying his face in the crook of Mickey’s neck, letting out another deep sigh.

”Let me call Svet,” Mickey mumbles against his ear, petting uselessly at the back of his neck and scratching his nails through the short hairs there, ”we’ll get in the car, drop Yev off at hers, and then we’ll go to Mercy and get you some fucking help.”

Ian doesn’t say anything so Mickey interprets his silence and lack of resistance as agreement, nodding against the side of Ian’s neck and pressing a quick kiss to his skin before he sniffs and takes a step back.

”Gimme one sec,” he says and leaves Ian standing in the living room to go get his phone. Once in the kitchen Mickey stops by the table and grabs on to the back of a chair, suddenly overwhelmed and lightheaded with emotion, closing his eyes for a second to regain his balance. He needs to be strong, he needs to be there for Ian, taking him to the last place on earth he knows Ian wants to go. He doesn’t have time to break right now.

Another breath and Mickey opens his eyes and picks up the phone, clicking through the list of contacts when he suddenly hears a sound from the door. It takes him a second to react, but then he finds Svetlana’s number and has a terrible thought at the same time, putting the phone to his ear and listening to the dull tone ringing out as he walks back into the living room.

Ian is gone. He’s not in the living room, and a couple of quick steps towards the hallway confirms his worst fears, the security chain still swinging slowly in the small, empty room.

”Fuck!” Mickey disconnects the call and heart in his throat he backs out of the hallway and runs the long few feet to Yevgeny’s room, freezing still in his track the second he lands his eyes on his son.

”Do you think I’m gonna need a lot of socks, dad?” Yevgeny asks when he notices him standing there, pausing his excited packing to frown at the little mountain of rolled up socks on the bed next to his already half-full suitcase.

”Nah,” Mickey forces out, thoughts racing, ”don’t worry about it.”

He steps away from the doorway, turns just out of Yevgeny’s view and sags against the nearest wall, and tries to think of what to do. There’s nothing he can do. Ian’s gone, he said he had a car, fuck knows where he got it, he’s long gone and Mickey can’t leave with Yevgeny here, anyway. Ian’s gone.

He’s barely aware of what he’s doing when he walks back into the hallway and slots the security chain back in place and locks the door, before he’s crossing the living room and kicking the door to his bedroom shut behind himself, moving around the bed to sit down on it, staring out his broken blinds at the orange and pink sunset.

His hands are shaking when he pulls out his pack of smokes and fishing out the last stick he balls up the carton and drops it to the floor. He puts the cigarette to his lips and has to flick the lighter a couple of times to get a flame, puffing at the cigarette and teasing the embers to life. It’s not until smoke is flowing out his nostrils that he notices the tears wetting his cheeks and he wipes angrily at them with the back of his hand, angling the burning end of the cigarette away as he’s pressing the balls of his hands into his eyes.

”Dad?”

Mickey straightens up a little but doesn’t turn around at the sound of his son’s voice.

”Hey kid,” he sighs and clears his throat over the growing lump in his chest, ”go find your old man an ashtray, would you?”

He hears Yevgeny move away from the doorway, sees the light shift a little on the floor next to the bed. Chewing his lip he puts the cigarette back and pulls several long drags from it, not managing to muster enough strength to care about the curling smoke filling the darkened room. He pulls up the hem of his shirt and wipes it quickly under his eyes, stopping just short of blowing his nose on it too.

Then Yevgeny’s padding back into the room and the bed dips a little when he sits down next to him, holding out a glass ashtray. Mickey takes it from him and rests it on his lap while Yevgeny puts his hands down on the bed and scoots up the soft edge of the mattress so he’s sitting with his feet dangling over the side. Mickey takes one last pull off the cigarette and then stubs it out in the ashtray, setting it aside on his bedside table and angling away from Yevgeny when the smoke billows out his nostrils with a slow exhale.

”Where’s Ian?” Yevgeny asks, a small frown creasing his dark eyebrows when Mickey glances at him.

”He had to leave again,” Mickey says and winces when Yevgeny’s face falls, ”I’m sorry bud, he’s got some grownup stuff he needs to take care of before he can come back for real.”

”What about our trip?” Yevgeny sounds like he’s one gentle push away from crying. Mickey sighs and puts an arm around him, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly.

”Yeah, well,” Mickey pauses and tilts his head to the side, not sure what to say, ”we’ll do that some other time, how about that?”

Yevgeny nods.

”He said-,” Mickey starts and stops, scratching self-consciously at the side of his mouth, ”told me to tell you he’s sorry, and that he loves you… and that he’s gonna come back as soon as he can.”

”When’s that?” Yevgeny asks and Mickey doesn’t miss his silent sniffle.

”I don’t know,” Mickey admits, ”things are fucked right now, but it’ll pass. I promise. I’ll take care of it and everything’s gonna be fine.”

Yevgeny leans in against him and nods, following when Mickey pulls him in even closer and rubs his hand up and down the kid’s skinny arm.

”He’s gonna need our help,” he says, more to himself than to Yevgeny, ”we’re gonna help him.”

They sit together in silence for a good long while, watching the light fade outside Mickey’s bedroom window and Yevgeny curling up and falling asleep with his arms crossed over Mickey’s thigh, head nestled on top and Mickey’s fingers carefully combing through his hair.

Mickey’s known all his life that he would do anything to make sure his family was safe, is taken care of. Ian might be a liability, he might have the power to hurt and confuse him, he might be dangerous and he might not be the best person to help raise Mickey’s son. But he is _the person_ Mickey wants, and he is family. Mickey couldn’t change this fact even if he wanted to, even if he thought he needed to.

Mickey can take care of him, he knows he can. Mickey takes care of his family.

Ian just needs to let him try.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter sadness : (
> 
> Oh and!
> 
> Без муки нет науки [Bez muki net nauki] is a Russian proverb which according to google is equivalent to a saying like "Adversity is a good teacher". It also said that a more literal translation would be more like "without torture no science", but looking up муки, 9 out of 10 times you will get sources saying it mostly means "flour". Context is everything etc, and language is funny, and Yevgeny should probably not be an interpreter. (Edit. This author's comment has been rephrased so it wouldn't sound so much like a question, thank you for letting me know.)
> 
> (I'm sorry if this felt a little unedited, again, poor time management this week) *blows kisses*


	5. July 24, 1999

July 24, 1999

 

”Hang on, buddy,” Mickey mutters and quickly twists out the car key from the ignition, flipping up the sun visor as he opens the door and steps out on the street. He flattens himself against the closed door when a car drives past.

”30, 40, who cares right? Fuck,” he sighs as he jogs around the front of the car, throwing a quick glare down the street before he puts on something of a smile and turns his focus on Yevgeny through his already opened door, ”buckle.”

Yevgeny unbuckles himself and swings his feet out, scooting his butt to the edge of his booster seat and stretching up his arms towards Mickey.

”Ain’t that far down,” Mickey rolls his eyes but leans over anyway to grab his son under the armpits and help him land the dismount. ”Ey! Ten outta ten.”

Yevgeny whoops and keeps his arms in the air as he runs a victory lap around Mickey, crashing into the car on his other side with a loud ’oomph’ while Mickey grabs his little backpack from under his seat and straightens up to shove the door shut with his foot.

”Alright,” Mickey smirks at his kid’s overflowing energy and holds out his hand, leading them up on the sidewalk once Yevgeny’s taken it, ”wanna click it?”

He dangles the key in front of Yevgeny and huffs when the kid lets go of his hand to grab it, grin from ear to ear shifting into a focused frown as he holds the clicker out and carefully runs the tip of his pointer finger down the three buttons, trying to remember which does what. He looks pleased as fuck when the car beeps and blinks, the locks all sliding into place on his first try. 

”Middle one every fucking time,” Mickey comments and shakes his head, ”there’s no mystery in life, man.”

Yevgeny ignores him and runs over to the car, his whole body swaying back when he grabs the handle with both hands and tries to pull the door open, checking that it’s really locked. Mickey knows it’s locked, but he still moves closer to his kid and holds out his hands behind him, just in case this is the day the middle button _isn’t_ the right one, and Yevgeny is about to fall on his ass when the door springs open.

But the door is locked and Yevgeny lets go of it, looking pleased with a job well done and turning back to Mickey to absently hold him by the hand again as they start walking down the street. It’s pretty close to impossible to find a good spot to park outside Svetlana’s house so Mickey doesn’t even try anymore, instead he heads straight for a street a couple of blocks away where parking is miraculously both free and usually available. Svetlana getting annoyed with him for parking her car inconveniently far away is just an added bonus.

Mickey doesn’t do it to piss her off though, in all honesty he does it for moments like these. Yevgeny’s little hand fitted against his palm, warm and a little clammy in the summer heat, as Mickey matches their pace to the kid’s short step and they take their time, Yevgeny talking breathlessly about whatever comes to mind. Lately it’s been a lot about birds.

He’s only half listening to it now, humming and agreeing whenever Yevgeny sounds like he’s looking for encouragement.

”And then Apollo flew across the water,” he says, stumbling a little over an uneven part of the sidewalk, grip tightening on Mickey’s hand, ”and the desert, and the river, and the jungle.”

”Yep,” Mickey agrees and squeezes his hand lightly, giving him a tightlipped smile when Yevgeny looks up at him, ”remember what happened after that?”

”He flew aaaaall the way back,” Yevgeny retells the story with a little more flair than Mickey usually is able to muster, ”to the tree!”

Mickey huffs and flashes his kid a quick grin when Yevgeny throws out his free arm like a wing and looks up at him again with a big smile. Yevgeny fussed and cried and dragged his feet for about a week after Ian disappeared the second time, but then Mickey got him that stupid book in a desperate attempt to get his mind off things, and fuck him if it hadn’t worked. It’s truthfully almost a little unnerving how well it worked but Mickey isn’t about to complain, or ever speak ill of books again as they’re clearly magical fucking things that should be feared and worshipped.

He only wishes this particular book was a little _better_ , he’s already sick and tired of it after only reading it three times in as many days. Standing in the book shop, he’d picked it up because the damned swallow reminded him of Ian, and then he’d gone and bought the thing after about two pages, when the blackbird made an appearance and it all became far too poignant for him to ignore. But reading it to his son he found out that it, like most children’s books he’s been forced to read so far, was pretty fucking weird, and had some parts he didn’t get the point of at all ( _educational_ , presumably, attempting to teach open-mindedness and trust but mostly just resulting in Yevgeny happily insisting that ’I don’t believe you!’ whenever Mickey tells him to brush his teeth, or eat his greens, or go to bed). The ending redeemed it a little, reuniting the two birds after a long separation, and the whole thing turned out surprisingly helpful.

”To the tree,” Mickey agrees, ”and you know what? Dumb fucking bird has to fly to Africa every year, want to or not it’s just something he’s gotta do. But he always comes back.”

”Why?” Yevgeny asks, because apparently that’s a thing you have to do when you’re five, find out the _reason_ behind everything, all the time.

”Why?” Mickey sighs and walks them around a corner and on to Svetlana’s street. ”Well, because the tree is home, and Apollo clearly loves that other dude bird-”

”Chack the blackbird,” Yevgeny interjects.

”Right,” Mickey nods, ”Chack, even though Chack has that lady bird there, and the eggs, he wants Apollo to come back because they belong together or some shit, right? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I feel kinda personally attacked by the whole thing.”

Yevgeny ignores his complaint, and rightly fucking so. ”How does he find his way?”

”Just does,” Mickey hums and stops them in front of Svetlana’s house, crouching down to get on level with Yevgeny and grab on to his sides, ”finding your way back home is easy, ’cause whatever happens it’s never going away, you get what I’m sayin’?”

”Maybe,” Yevgeny clearly lies and the way he says it is so familiar to Mickey he doesn’t really know if he ought to laugh or cry.

”Maybe,” Mickey nods and takes a second to figure out what it is he’s trying to say, tip of his tongue worrying at the corner of his mouth, ”you ever heard the expression ’home is where the heart is’?”

Yevgeny shakes his head, his whole body swaying from side to side with the movement and Mickey’s hands swaying with him, and then picks up a hand to place it over his chest, head bent so he can see what he’s doing.

”Right,” Mickey nods when Yevgeny looks up at him again, ”and you got like, people in there. Like your mom, and me, and whatever happens, whatever you do or say or think or feel, we’re always gonna be your home. That make any sense to you?”

The little line between his brows says otherwise, but Yevgeny drops his hand from his chest and nods. Mickey thinks he probably took this whole conversation a step too far, and he feels weird not talking directly about Ian leaving when it’s pretty much all he can think of these days. But with Yevgeny finally doing better Mickey’s loath to bring Ian up when he strictly doesn’t have to, and it feels like what’s really important right now is that the kid is made to understand a few basic truths. 

That he’s not the reason Ian left. 

That there isn’t a power in hell or on earth that can make _Mickey_ leave. 

That if Yevgeny ever gets it in his head to run away from home, ten years down the line when he’s a confused teenager and Mickey’s potentially turned into the enemy, he needs to _know_ Mickey’s not gonna stop loving him, or give up on him, or deny or denounce him. That things might be shit right now and Ian’s really done a number on them, but that doesn’t mean they can stop loving him, stop being a home for him. That they can’t stitch this bitch of a situation right back up and find a way to heal.

It doesn’t mean Ian won’t return to them. He will, Mickey knows he will. 

”You good?” he asks, putting a lid on his spiraling thoughts and an end to the sentimental bullshit, for now.

”Yes,” Yevgeny assures him with a clear nod and a wide smile, patting Mickey on the back of his hand like he’s the one needing the comfort. The kid is an emotional genius, especially when measured against his immediate ancestry.

”Fuckin’ A,” Mickey sighs and his tentative smile blows up in a startled laugh when Yevgeny reaches for his face and tries to pinch his lips together. It’s Sunny and that fucking preschool messing with the kid, Mickey is sure of it, making him think there’s something wrong with utilizing the full spectrum of the English language, in all its richness and color. Most of the time it would seem he’s so used to Mickey’s potty mouth that he doesn’t even notice it, but then suddenly it’s like he remembers which words are the _bad words_ , and better fucking believe he takes any and all opportunity to act the adult and correct his old man.

”Bad word,” he announces and tries to look stern, but failing miserably when Mickey struggles to move his lips and probably ends up looking a damn fool.

”You’re a bad word,” Mickey argues, his mature retort coming out more like ’urorbrdwrd’ when Yevgeny stops pinching his lips just so he can cover Mickey’s whole mouth with both of his palms. Mickey pulls back a little and folds his lips over his teeth so he won’t hurt his kid when he snaps forward and captures one of his hands, giving him a playful bite.

”Ouch!” Yevgeny gasps and pulls his hands back, leaning away from Mickey and into his steady hands, Mickey tightening his grip so the kid won’t fall on his ass and drag Mickey along with him.

”Yeah, ’s what you get,” Mickey grins and lets go of Yevgeny enough to put a hand to his back and gently usher him towards the door, ”go rat me out to your mom.”

”I’m not a rat,” Yevgeny calls out as he runs across the narrow lawn and up the front porch, ”I’m a swallow!”

”Yeah, that’s not-,” Mickey starts and stops with a huff, straightening up and lingering for a second on the sidewalk as Yevgeny goes straight for the bell without checking the door, ”whatever.”

He climbs the stairs and reaches Yevgeny the same moment the door swings open.

”Zaychik!” Nika exclaims and spreads her arms out wide before she grabs Yevgeny by the shoulders and pulls him in, showering the top of his head with kisses and a long string of garbled Russian. 

Mickey’s never been Nika’s biggest fan but she keeps Svetlana happy, most of the time, so he makes sure to keep his personal opinions to himself, most of the time. And Yevgeny likes her, which pretty much seals the deal for Mickey, watching as his kid surrenders to her eager affection with a muffled giggle and lets her back them inside the house without having to unwrap him from her arms. Mickey steps in after them and closes the door behind himself, giving Svetlana a quick nod when he spots her in the kitchen, her hands down a mixing bowl and eyes on her son and girlfriend, a pleased smile on her lips.

”Misha, husband!” Nika suddenly attacks out of left field, grabbing Mickey by the cheeks and holding him still, managing to get in a couple of wet kisses before he regains his composure enough to fend her off. 

”What the fuck,” he complains and takes a step back, for safety, wiping off his face and glaring first at Nika and then at a laughing Svetlana when the former is back to doting on their kid.

”Beautiful child!” she praises the boy. ”No husband, no beautiful child, no sunshine, all is dark.”

Nika’s English leaves a lot to the imagination, unlike her wardrobe, so Mickey’s learned to appreciate it when she switches to Russian and he can tap out of the conversation all together. It’s not that he likes being the one dummy in the room that doesn’t know what’s going on, but once he started thinking of it as being spared a bunch of aimless chit-chat with someone he’s not overly fond of anyway, leaving her to prattle on in her native tongue suddenly appeared the more palatable option. She has her sharply manicured hooks in Yevgeny now, appearing to be asking him rapid-fire questions and barely giving him any time to respond as she sits him down in the living room, snuggling up with him on the couch.

”Alright,” Mickey tries to get her attention but remains thoroughly ignored when he walks after them, ”ease off the kid, Dostoyevsky.”

All that does is get Nika to look up and start taking at Mickey instead, no doubt cursing him out six ways to Sunday.

”Fuck’s sake, Nik,” he says and gestures towards his son’s wide-eyed expression, ”not in front of the kid.”

Nika stops talking just long enough to grin and blow him a kiss, Yevgeny giggling next to her.

”She says you’re beautiful, dad,” he translates and makes a grossed out face at the thought. Mickey decides not to dignify that with an answer, picking up his eyebrows and holding up Yevgeny’s backpack, making sure the kid sees it when he sets it down on one of the armchairs and leaves the Russian tea party to join Svetlana in the kitchen.

”Is she high?” he asks in lieu of greeting, sitting down opposite Svetlana at the kitchen island.

”She is happy,” Svetlana corrects him with a fond smile and a small shrug, ”and also high, yes.”

”Shit,” Mickey sighs and rests his head in his hands, pressing the heels of his palms against his closed eyes. He’s not sure if he wants to bitch about Nika doing drugs with his kid in the house, or if he’s wishing she’d have waited for him to arrive so they could’ve gone out back to toke up together. He hasn’t had a decent hit in years, and he hasn’t really missed it until right this second. 

He looks up when Svetlana places something in front of him, listlessly deliberating whether he should protest when she holds up a clear bottle of (presumably) vodka and pours two generous shots. Whatever, he’s not driving more today and doing the bars later he knows he’s gonna get himself one or two reality bumpers along the way. Might as well start now.

”Za sbychu mecht,” Svetlana cheers him, holding up her shot glass and tossing it back once she’s made sure Mickey’s on board. 

”Whatever,” Mickey agrees and follows suit, grimacing around the awful fucking taste and the burning down his throat. He turns the glass upside down when Svetlana looks ready to hit him up with a second round, rolling her eyes at him and screwing the cap back on when he sets the glass down and pushes it aside.

”Still nothing?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

”Not one fucking word,” he confirms and shrugs in an attempt to cover up the slight tremor in his voice.

”So you move on,” she says, matter-of-factly, putting the bottle away and returning most of her attention to her cooking, ”new boy, maybe orange, maybe not. Try not crazy, this time.”

”Fuck you,” Mickey mutters and rests his chin in his hand, turns his head a little so he can see the top part of his son with the Russian ex-hooker in the other room. Yevgeny’s dug out his new book from his backpack and it looks a lot like he’s trying to read it to Nika by memory. Mickey thinks it’s probably very helpful that she’s high right now, her shrill, infectious laugh reaching them in the kitchen proving the book is the kind of funny that needs a certain amount of medicinal encouragement to really shine.

Svetlana is rolling out dough when he looks at her again, spreading it thin over the marble island. He frowns and sits back on his stool, removing his elbows in case she needs to take up all the available space.

”Did you make those copies I asked for?” he asks, suddenly itching to get out of there.

”Of course,” she scoffs and glances at him before she picks up a round cookie cutter and starts pressing it into the thin dough, ”still not sure why you make me help.”

”Told you,” Mickey sighs and scratches at the side of his eyebrow, looking around the kitchen just in case he might be able to find the posters without her consistently reluctant help, ”made too many at work already, need to chill for a while until they back off again.”

”So you get me in trouble instead,” Svetlana concludes with a knowing smile, cocking her head to the side and not looking up from her hands as she peels away the negative spaces from around the dough circles, ”I see.”

”Did you get in trouble?” Mickey asks, eyebrows flying high in doubt.

”No, of course not,” she smirks and glances up at him as her long, delicate fingers clench a strip of dough into a squishy ball, dropping it aside with the rest to be re-rolled, ”but now I go from whole package to just one ball, for future squeezing.”

”How about you start tryin’ not to squeeze any balls,” Mickey suggests, getting off the stool and gesturing towards Svetlana’s whole terrifying personality, ”at all, fuck-, see how that works out for ya.”

”It’s a squeeze or get squeezed world,” she says and Mickey honestly doesn’t know if she says this crap because she thinks it’s right or because she likes to watch him cringe, either way it does the trick, ”I work my way up and now I squeeze, why rock the boat that does not sink?”

Mickey scoffs and moves around the kitchen to look out the open window, at the dry lawn out back.

”I get how having leverage on your boss ’cause he wants to stick it to you might seem like the fucking epitome of power to you, or whatever,” he says, absently rubbing at the side of his mouth before he turns to raise an eyebrow at his ex-wife, ”but I’m tellin’ you, you could do so much fucking better.”

Svetlana doesn’t look at him, lips pressed together and eyes pointedly on her hands as they distribute the pink minced meat goo into little heaps on top of each circle of dough.

”You stay for pelmeni,” she says, more like an order than a question before she ruins it by looking up and tagging on a softened request, ”yes?”

”Nah, gotta go,” he says and folds his arms over his chest, tight, ”just came in to grab the posters anyway.”

She nods. ”In bedroom, wait here.”

Svetlana wipes off her hands on a towel and brushes past him without any further preamble. Mickey stands for a moment in the kitchen, listening to the sound of his son’s voice, a little different in pitch than what’s otherwise so fundamentally familiar to him, as it shapes around the harsher tones of his second language. 

Aimlessly he walks up to the kitchen counter and picks up one of the prepared dough circles, attempting to fold it and pinch it the way he’s seen Svetlana do countless times before. It’s a botch job and he drops it back on the marble before he manages to mess it up completely. He’s an okay home cook but he never feels comfortable stepping beyond his own limited abilities, within any field, his learning curve more often than not immediately flatlining before him, telling him to give up while he’s still ahead.

He knows it’s not his best side. He knows he gives up on a lot of things before he even tries, but he thinks it’s different when it actually really fucking matters. When it comes to family, when it comes to love.

”Here,” Svetlana says, shaking Mickey out of his thoughts when she steps back into the room, her stride wide and confident at all times, ”I made fifty black and white, fifty color. Make them last a little longer this time, yes?”

”Yeah, sure,” Mickey says and takes the plastic bag from her hands, checking its contents and then folding the thin plastic around the stack of papers so he can clutch it under his arm, ”thanks.”

”Lyubov' zla, polyubish i kozla,” she tells him, like he’s supposed to understand what she’s saying by now just because she decides to enunciate every nonsense syllable, as she returns to her station and goes back to work, eying Mickey’s massacred dumpling but not commenting on it, ”love is cruel, love is blind.”

Frowning, Mickey thinks he couldn’t disagree more. The love he feels for Ian has never been blind, he knew from day one what he signed himself up for and he did it anyway. And it was never cruel, either. Gun to his head, forced to get down and dirty and poetic about it, he’d have to insist that _life is cruel_ , and love is the only thing making it at all bearable. 

It gives him hope, too; stupid, wonderful hope. He knows what Ian felt with him, he knows that Ian wants to be with him. But life is cruel, _life is cruel_ , and things aren’t always as easy as want.

”Maybe,” he says and quirks a small, instinctual smile when he reminds himself of Yevgeny. 

He’s not really interested in talking to Svetlana about this, not more than strictly necessary to keep her in the loop. He’s not sure she actually gets it, or cares enough about Mickey’s feelings to ever take the time to fully understand what opening up to letting Ian love him, to let himself fall as hard and fast as _he did_ for Ian, has done to him. Changed him. Bust open his door and taken it off the hinges, fed it through the woodchipper. 

He needs another drink.

”Well, thanks,” he repeats, more like a precursor to start moving for the front door than anything else, ”I’ll get outta your hair, let you get on with this-”

He waves a hand towards the mess of flour and dough on the island and lets the sentence drift.

”Say goodbye to Yevgeny before you leave,” Svetlana directs him, because she doesn’t possess the same kinda self-control as Mickey when it comes to lecturing the other on basic fucking parenting things they don’t fucking need lecturing on, ”keys.”

That, however, he _did_ almost forget. Digging his free hand down his pockets he finds the car key and lobs it across the room for Svetlana to catch, only to step closer to her anyway when he suddenly thinks of something else.

”Look,” he says, careful to keep his voice down, ”Yev’s new book-”

”Orange boy gave it to him,” she fills in, not pausing her hands as they rhythmically pinch and twist the dumplings when she gives him a knowing look, ”I hear, it’s miracle.”

”It worked, didn’t it?” Mickey defends himself. ”I said it was from Ian and it made him happy, okay? Can I count on you to not fucking crush our kid just ’cause you have a problem with every fuckin’ thing I do?”

Svetlana sighs and stops working this time when she looks at him, floury palms resting on the counter. ”No problem, the book is gift from orange boy, bird will return when he is ready, whoop-de-fucking-do, big glossy American happy ever after _bullshit_ ending.”

”Was that so fucking hard?” Mickey exclaims and grins when Svetlana’s stern expression cracks into a small smile. ”Welcome to America, comrade. You’re one of us now, get with the fuckin’ program.”

Svetlana huffs and shakes her head, returning her focus to the dumplings.

”Big heart will sink you,” she mutters, like she doesn’t want him to hear it but still can’t resist saying it, in plain fucking English too.

He doesn’t stay to argue, leaving the kitchen to stop by his son and give him a quick smooch on top of his ruffled hair, smiling to himself as he steps out of the house to the sound of Yevgeny excitedly repeating the same quick phrase, the cadence of his voice the exact same as when he says it in English. Come to the tree! Come to the tree!

Mickey is covering very familiar grounds today, taking the train due south and sticking up his posters to notice boards on streets he roamed as a kid, finding every free clinic, every shelter and bus stop and bar available to ask if they’ve seen Ian, and if there’s anywhere he can put up his picture. He gets a lot of ’no’, paired with a usually reluctant ’I guess’, but he doesn’t care. It’s either this or go home and get shitfaced, and option two isn’t gonna help fucking anyone, least of all himself.

He hasn’t been to the Alibi in years, not since Terry died, but it’s somehow managed to stay exactly the same. There are one too many familiar faces in there that Mickey doesn’t necessarily want to deal with right now, so he barrels through the dimly lit room and taps the bar when he gets to it, putting down his quickly diminishing stack of posters.

”Hey Mickey,” Kevin greets him when he tops off a pitcher of beer and looks up, ”long time!”

”Yeah,” Mickey says and can feel himself scowl even though he kinda tries not to, ”anyway, you seen Gallagher around lately?”

”Which one?” Kevin asks, earnestly, as he sets down the pitcher on a round tray at the end of the bar, leaving it there to walk up to Mickey.

”The fuck you think which one?” Mickey complains, eyebrows hitched all the way up along with the pitch of his voice. ”Ian? The one I’ve been banging for six months? Jesus, ’which one’, the fuck would I care about any of the other ones?”

”Really?” Kevin completely ignores his indignant outburst with a pleased smile, sounding genuinely surprised. ”Aw man, good for you! Sweet kid that one and, just between us bros, I understand he’s not a bad catch in the junk department, right? You gotta be pretty pleased?”

Mickey stares at the dumb as shit bartender for a second, very annoyed and just a little bit taken aback by the sudden realization that one, Kevin shouldn’t technically know about him and two, _Kevin knows about him_. Just a year ago it would have taken Mickey a bottle of Jack and a fistfight to come out to anyone that wasn’t flat out propositioning him, and now he pretty much just blurted it out for all of his childhood neighbors and drunks to hear. He’s been to one or two Gallagher family affairs since Ian and he got together, but they never announced anything and besides, Kevin strikes him like the kinda person who generally needs to have things bashed over his head to really catch on. 

Kevin didn’t know about them.

He thinks he should be happy about this but he really isn’t. Integrity means jack shit when your boyfriend is missing and nobody seems to fucking realize that you’re falling apart without him.

”No, I’m not,” he eventually says, Kevin finally picking up on his generally piss poor mood with a concerned frown, ”he’s fucking missing, have you seen him?”

”Oh shit,” Kevin nods and takes a step back, looking up at the ceiling as he officially becomes the first person of the day to really think about it before he answers, ”no, no I haven’t. Vee did tell me he ran off again, I forgot. I’m sorry, that gotta suck, man. Can I get you something? On the house?”

Mickey is about to decline when Veronica pops out from the back rooms, giving him the stink-eye as she passes the bar and grabs the pitcher of beer Kevin just poured. 

”Nuh-uh!” she insists, not bothering to stop long enough to properly meddle, speaking louder as she walks away. ”The boy pays same as everybody else, Kev!”

Mickey can feel his eyebrows bunching up at being referred to as ’the boy’, like the last ten years never happened, and he turns back to Kevin who gives him an apologetic shrug.

”Don’t mind her,” he says, but keeps his voice low all the same, ”my lovely wife is made of stone. Beer?”

”Nah, thanks,” Mickey reaches into his plastic bag and pulls out a couple of the color posters, ”could you put these up somewhere?”

”Yeah! Sure!” Kevin takes the posters from him and turns the top one around to look at it. ”He’s really missing this time, huh?”

Mickey bites his tongue over a few choice words he wouldn’t mind having on the subject of ’this time’, settling with a curt nod instead.

”Bull-shit,” a voice to his left disagrees empathically, out of nowhere. Mickey glares at the old drunk on the stool next to him, who quickly excuses himself, grabbing his half-drunk beer and backing away from the bar to reveal the familiar profile of Lip Gallagher. Ian’s older brother doesn’t turn to face Mickey’s challenging stare, but casually picks up his beer and tips it back for an unbothered sip.

”’Scuse me?” Mickey asks, changing his stance and leaning an elbow on the bar, biting down hard on his lip to keep from clocking Lip in his, right then and there.

”You heard me,” Lip says and puts his beer down, swiveling on his stool and smirking at Mickey, eyes half-lidded and bored, ”Ian always leaves, it’s what he does. You’re not special.”

”Yeah, okay, whatever,” Mickey dismisses him, ”you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. At least I care enough to look for him.”

Lip shakes his head and turns back to look down at his beer.

”But you just sit the fuck back and chill, and I’ll just go ahead and find him, how about that?” Mickey continues, two and a half weeks of worry and frustration bubbling up inside him. ”I’m his family now, I can take care of him.”

Mickey grabs the posters from the bar and gives Kevin a small nod, ignoring Lip’s derisive scoff and heading for the door. He’s already some way down the street when he realizes that Lip’s following him.

”Hey!” 

Mickey ignores the call and keeps walking, until something flies past his head and a half-full bottle of beer spins into view and explodes in a million wet pieces against the asphalt in front of him. He stops, fingers itching and clenching into fists.

”You think you know shit?” Lip yells behind him. ”You think you know what it’s like? You don’t know shit, running after my brother and telling me I don’t care, fuck you! You’re pathetic, you know that?”

Mickey spins around and pressing his lips together he raises his eyebrows at Lip, who stops and spreads out his arms in challenge, face all red.

”Yeah. Pathetic! He doesn’t give a fuck about you,” he says, voice hard and angry when he points at Mickey, ”six times. Six times in as many years he’s done this, and sometimes there’s been some dude thinking they could handle it, and you know what? The second he walks back into the house, _our house_ , we never see those bozos again. This is what Ian does, he falls in love, he falls the fuck outta love, he leaves, he dumps whatever asshole of the month he’d been shacking up with, and he comes home, to his real-”

Lip’s so caught up in his rant he doesn’t seem to notice it when Mickey finally snaps, stepping up to him and head-butting him right between the eyes, nose crunching on impact. He cries out in pain and recoils, hands flying up to push back at the blood flowing down his face.

”Fuck!” he yells when he catches his nose and seems instantly reminded that it hurts like fuck, and maybe he shouldn’t fucking touch it.

Mickey walks away from him in a wide circle, adrenalin pumping and his forehead throbbing once he regains some of his composure. Touching the palm of his hand to his furrowed brow he turns back to survey the damage he’s caused. Lip is sitting on the curb, one hand under his nose and covered in blood. Mickey knows from experience that these things look a lot worse than they actually are. 

The rush of the brief fight ebbing through him, Mickey is left feeling strangely calm. Exhausted and annoyed and still worried, but calm. Mickey only really knows Lip through whatever Ian’s directly or inadvertently told him, but there are two things of which he is absolutely convinced. One; Lip is an asshole. And two; when it comes to Ian, Lip and Mickey are on the same side. 

Maybe it’s time Lip was made to understand this, too.

”Get up,” Mickey grunts and walks past him and back inside the Alibi. He strides up to the bar and drops his bag to the floor by his stool, sitting down and nodding at Kevin who doesn’t look terribly surprised to see him.

”Does the offer for that free drink still stand?” Mickey asks him and leans his elbows on the bar.

”Sure,” Kevin says and pulls out a clean glass from the rack above the bar, nodding his approval when Mickey settles in, ”beer?”

”Yep,” Mickey agrees and can’t help quirking a smile when he hears the door open and close around Lip, following him back inside, ”and maybe have some paper towels ready or something, unless you want blood everywhere.”

”Jesus, what the fuck!” Veronica exclaims from across the room just as Lip gingerly sits down on the stool next to Mickey’s, like somehow his whole fucking body hurts after one light blow to the nose.

”He’s fine,” Mickey says and accepts the beer being placed before him. Kevin doesn’t look fazed at all, he snaps the towel off his shoulder and holds it out for Lip to bunch it up and catch the worst of the blood.

”Anything for your maimed friend?” he asks Mickey, quirking an eyebrow and waiting for a reply like he’s just taking another order.

”Nah, he can pay for himself,” Mickey shrugs, and then thinks better of it, ”scratch that, make that two beers and have him pay for both. Don’t want to put you through the wringer with your lady when we got a solution at our hands that works out real nice for all involved.”

”Sure works for me,” Kevin laughs and pours another beer, placing it in front of Lip and accepting the slightly bloodied notes Lip pulls out of his wallet and throws down on the bar.

Mickey gets though half of his beer before he feels urged to break the silence and talk, staring into his drink and not turning to look at Lip. He’s quiet and waiting, with a kind of energized patience that suddenly reminds Mickey so much of Ian he feels about two seconds away from crying, for no fucking reason at all.

”I think I fucked up,” he says and takes himself by surprise, because that wasn’t at all what he meant to say. He thinks he sounds just as pathetic as Lip seems to think he is.

”You tried,” Lip offers the second surprise in under a minute, voice low and a little muffled by the towel he’s still got pressed against his nose. Mickey scoffs and wipes at his eyes, blinks away the wetness.

”You know why he hasn’t confided in you about anything important goin’ on with him, since he was like, fifteen?” Mickey asks and can’t help the way his lips quirk up into a small smirk when he can tell that Lip stiffens in his chair. ”’Cause he doesn’t trust you.”

”You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lip complains in a mutter, but with a beer in his hand and Lip’s nose halfway to broken, Mickey thinks he understands what it means now, where it’s coming from. That Lip is lashing out because he’s scared, and because he probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to Ian, anymore. Hasn’t for a long time.

”I kinda do, though,” Mickey says easily and picks up his eyebrows, takes another drink of his beer to give it a second and let that sink in a little, ”he actually tells me stuff, says he’s told me everything and I believe him. He doesn’t want to rely on you because-, and hey, this is mostly my interpretation so guess you can fucking ignore it if you don’t like it but, you Gallaghers are unreliable as shit, every single one of you.”

Lip huffs and shifts on his chair in annoyance, but miraculously doesn’t try to argue.

”He’s smart,” Mickey hums, ”and he’s fucking right not to trust you, because if you really believe that those asshole ex-boyfriends of his actually went away ’cause Ian dumped them, then you’re a lot dumber than I thought, and I thought you were plenty dumb already.”

Lip has the decency to look a little remorseful when Mickey picks up his beer and throws a quick glance his way.

”I uh-, he never told me.”

”Yeah, well,” Mickey sighs and licks a drop of beer off his bottom lip, the glass scraping over the worn wood of the bar when he sets it down, ”every last one of them left him when the going got tough, first sign of trouble. Being seen as a problem and being left for it, that’s what he’s used to. And he takes off because he knows no one’s gonna look for him, doesn’t take a fucking genius to figure that one out.”

”I’ve looked,” Lip insists, ”in the beginning. I’ve had to deal with this shit my whole life, with our mom and then with Ian too. You think you know anything about this? No, you don’t-, you don’t know what it’s like to listen to your little brother saying he wants to put a bullet in his brain, just ’cause life doesn’t seem _real_ enough. Given a fucking choice, I wouldn’t choose to deal with that. No one would blame _you_ for bailing, Mickey.”

Mickey shakes his head and downs the rest of his beer, just to keep himself from hitting the guy again.

”No fucking shit this stuff’s hard, asshole,” he says and gets up from his stool, bending down to pick up his bag before he turns to face Lip’s increasingly uncertain countenance, ”but I don’t get to pick and choose this any more than your brother does, and he’s the one having to live with it every day, not me, and definitely not your privileged ass. Think about that.”

He pats Lip on the shoulder and walks past him.

”He’s smart,” Lip says behind him, stopping him in his tracks, ”if he doesn’t wanna be found, he’s not gonna be found.”

Mickey frowns and turns around, ignoring the way Lip seems to tense up a little when he gets closer again.

”What does that mean?” he asks, attempting to soften his scowl by a couple degrees when Lip just gives him a nervous shrug. ”No seriously, what the fuck does that mean? He told me the first time he ran away he didn’t really try to hide, and you didn’t even look for him long enough to realize he’d fucking enlisted by the way, _Mr I’ve Looked_. Yeah, you did a great fucking job.”

Lip rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue. Mickey can’t help it, he feels the unease crawl up his spine and he glances around the dusty bar before he steps even closer and lowers his voice.

”I know I wasn’t there for the other times,” Mickey admits, ignoring Lip’s clear surprise at hearing it, ”but something really fucking weird is going on this time.”

Mickey feels really fucking stupid, finally saying out loud what’s been on his mind for little over a week now. Spinning around and twisting up his thoughts.

”I called his therapist,” he explains quickly, ”she wouldn’t tell me anything, ’cause of her fucking confidentiality pledge, right? So I went down there and nothing, there’s no trace of him there. No file, not in the database, not anywhere. Four years of treatment and a fucking ton of prescription drugs and _nothing_. So I check hospitals, police stations, nothing. I talk to Bonnie, his boss, and she’s on the fucking phone with me while she tries to pull out his personnel file and _it isn’t there_.”

Mickey feels like he might be losing it, listing all the weird shit he’s discovered in the past week that individually might be dismissible flukes, but together add up to something genuinely troubling.

”So I went to his apartment to pick up some things,” he continues, ”maybe find bills with his name on them or a paycheck, whatever. Fucking nothing. Furniture, computers, all his crap, it’s all gone. When I confront his landlord about it, the dick seems to remember me just fine but completely denies the fact that he’s been renting 402 to anyone at all, says he’s been using it as storage.”

”The fuck?” Lip finally cuts in, looking torn between being skeptical and intrigued.

”I mean, clearly he’s lying outta his fat fuckin’ ass about that,” Mickey says, ”but when I asked the old lady next door, she talked my ear off for ten minutes about her cats, but became like a fucking brick wall when I asked about Ian, feeding me the same bullshit as the landlord did.”

”Mickey,” Lip says, and Mickey can tell he’s already starting to sober up, leaning back against the comforts of his skepticism, ”you’re sounding completely insane.”

”I know,” Mickey sighs, ”fuck, I know. But listen, Ian comes to me and he tells me he’s going into hiding because he’s been careless, he’s been snooping around places where he knows he doesn’t belong, and now someone’s after him. I’m fucking rational, I immediately think he’s crazy, I want to take him to a hospital and _fix him_. But what if he wasn’t imagining things, this time?”

Mickey can already feel his own conviction slipping, snuffed out completely when Lip looks at him like he deserves pity more than ridicule. Mickey might have all together preferred being the target of his misplaced anger and resentment.

”Either fucking way,” he says before Lip gets the chance to tell him something he already knows, ”I’m gonna look for your brother until I find him, and then I’m gonna help him.”

Lip looks like he’s searching for the right thing to say, but then he seems to settle for a baffled nod. Mickey grabs his stuff and walks out without another word, leaving Lip behind to nurse his bust up nose and his own cocktail of genetic flaws.

Mickey’s got work to do.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	6. October 14, 1999

October 14, 1999

 

”Hey Laur,” Mickey says and clears his throat a little when the call patches through and the detective’s standard ’yeah?’ brings him out of his absent thoughts.

 _”Mickey,”_ Lauren says, her squeaky chair coming through loud and clear as she presumably relaxes back in it, _”a whole week, buddy I’m proud of you.”_

Mickey scoffs and sits back on his couch, too, resting his head on the back of it and letting his knees spread. His now inch thick folder is laid out on the coffee table out of pure habit, he doesn’t expect to add anything to it today. 

”Yeah well,” he says and thinks he might be smiling, for absolutely no reason at all, ”got a thick fuckin’ head but guess it’s finally starting to sink in, huh?”

Detective Pembroke just hums, maybe because she doesn’t know what to say or maybe because she’s actually working and only half engaged in Mickey’s pointless phone call. It’s kinda become a therapeutic thing at this point, once she stopped resisting and instead started expecting his daily, now weekly, call. He never expected to be so chummy with a cop, never even imagined being in a place where he’d willingly involve authorities in his personal business, but here he is anyway. Ian disappeared off the surface of the planet and left Mickey to practically hound the police, _needing_ them to do something. Needing to do _something_.

”Just can’t fuckin’-,” he says and sighs, feels his eyes grow wet like a fucking pavlovian response at this point, it’s embarrassing, ”let go.”

 _”Well,”_ Lauren starts and then sighs, too, sounding a little tired and distracted, but sincere, _”not being able to let go of shit is part of my job description, so I can’t really say anything about that.”_

”But,” Mickey nods and closes his eyes, ”there’s nothing.”

 _”Nada,”_ Lauren confirms, _”I’m pretty sure my computer’s got a personal vendetta against me, so obviously I have no clue what I’m talking about, but some of these hackers are really good at what they do. My guess is your boyfriend’s gonna-, shit-”_

There’s some vague commotion in the background, Mickey thinks he can hear someone yelling about dirty pigs. It’s oddly comforting.

 _”Mickey, I gotta go,”_ Lauren says, putting on her stern Detective Voice like a uniform, she’d used it with him for weeks until he somehow wore her down to liking him, to treating him like a person and not some nutcase refusing to leave well enough alone, _”is it gonna be tomorrow or next week, just a heads up?”_

”Next week,” Mickey confirms, like a vow, ”if at all.”

Lauren snorts, because she probably believes him about as much as he believes himself right now.

 _”Look, dude,”_ she says, quickly, _”don’t beat yourself up over feeling hope, hope is good. And go find yourself a fucking shrink, Mickey, or I will start charging you for these calls.”_

”Protect and serve, bitch,” Mickey shoots back, ”so serve me.”

 _”Okay,”_ she chuckles, keeping her voice a little lower now, _”then consider this me protecting you against yourself right now; stop insulting a police officer, it’s a criminal offense, and hang up the fucking phone.”_

”Criminal offense my ass,” Mickey scoffs, ”you think I don’t know my rights to talk shit?”

_”Bye Mickey.”_

He lowers the receiver from his ear and blindly finds the right button with his thumb, the soft click of the disconnected call sharp in his silent apartment. Tossing it aside on the couch he sits still for a few minutes, dwelling in a rare moment of calm. Therapy isn’t for him, but feeling like he’s actually done something, even if it’s as pointless and small as calling the police for the hundredth time, somehow puts his mind at ease for a little while. He just needs to _do_ something.

Needs to somehow make himself believe that he’s doing everything he can, and that there are other possible reasons why Ian’s still missing beyond ’dead’ or ’he’s just not that into you’. It’s not a barrel of laughs to actually wish you believed that the man you love doesn’t love you back.

He doesn’t believe it. Days, weeks, and months go by and every anxious thought and theory imaginable has passed through his mind, but not once has he managed to believe that Ian didn’t mean it when they were together. 

Letting out a tired sigh he holds out his arms to heave himself out of the soft couch, scooting forward to sit on the edge of the plush cushion, scratching through the light scruff on his chin as he looks down at the open file. Leafing through it he finds the meticulously crossed out year calendar he’s torn out of a Staples catalogue at work and picks up his pen, clicking it a couple of times before he sets it to the glossy, thin paper and carefully puts an ’x’ over today’s date.

”Three months,” he mutters to himself and absently starts tracing the sketched out memory of Ian’s tattoo in the margin of the last copy of the ’missing’-posters he’s still got left. The folder is full of them, doodle after doodle of the same white swallow, wings spread wide in flight. 

Closing the file he gets up and walks into his bedroom.

He takes off his work clothes and puts on one of his nicer button down shirts, pulling on his least worn pair of jeans and threads on his belt, avoiding his own eyes in the mirror as he tightens the buckle. He doesn’t shave but he gives his face a good scrub, not bothering to wait for the water to run hot before he cups his hands under it and dives in, savoring the cold against his closed eyelids. He puts on cologne and leaves the bathroom before he has time to change his mind, change out of his clothes again and crawl into bed. 

He puts on his coat and checks his pockets for the essentials, keys, wallet, smokes, then he turns off the lights and locks the door behind himself, stepping out into the already dark, early evening. He has to sprint to catch the L, even though he knows he wouldn’t have had to wait very long for the next one. It’s unusually cold out and he doesn’t want to stand on the platform with nothing to do but wait, even if it’s just ten minutes. The quick jog and the packed train makes him sweat in his heavy coat and getting to push his way through the crowd and back out into the cold is a great relief. He stands on the platform and feels the train push back into motion behind him as he prioritizes his own sanity over everything else by fishing out a cigarette and lighting it up before he starts making his way down the stairs and out of the station.

He knows he’s running late but he takes his time anyway, leisurely walking the few blocks from the station to the Fairy Tail. He hasn’t been there in a couple of months, not since he got piss drunk and started attacking one of the bartenders when the guy didn’t have the answers Mickey’d wanted. He’d been trying to get laid, that’s why he’d been there, sad and angry and abandoned, lonely and frustrated, but the one guy showing even a little interest in going with him that night left with someone else once Mickey had that one shot too many and the smokey-eyed bartender jostled a memory of a party he’d been to with Ian, the party of an old friend, one of the few he still had since his club days. The poor guy hadn’t had a clue about who Ian was and Mickey had ended up bodily ejected from the club, swearing and shouting and throwing punches that consistently landed about two feet away from where he’d vaguely aimed.

This will not be a repeat performance. Just a drink, just a drink and then see what happens. _You don’t gotta do anything you don’t want to._

His phone rings the same moment he lays eyes on his destination, and glancing at the green display he quickly tosses aside his burnt down cigarette and lights another one, moving out of the way of the happy weekday evening crowd on the street to huddle in against a brick wall and accept the call.

 _”You home?”_ Lip greets him without preamble.

Mickey shakes his head and exhales a lungful of smoke through his nose. ”Nah, out.”

 _”Doesn’t matter,”_ Lip decides, _”don’t even know if this is anything.”_

Mickey can hear his keyboard in the background, tapping under his rapid-fire fingers. Lip hadn’t been terribly interested in computers up until a few months ago, more inclined to want to physically break them apart to find out how they tick than go online and actually use them. He’s taken to it like a duck to water, though, and every day he seems to disappear deeper into the endless online web of information.

”But it’s something,” Mickey says and feels the angry, defiant hope rumbling in his gut. These phone calls are frequent, but Lip is never hesitant or bashful, he’s brash and confident and much more likely to say he’s got all the answers than he is admitting that he doesn’t know. This feels different, and different is good when normal is what it is these days.

 _”It’s something,”_ Lip confirms and the tapping stops, replaced by the creaking of his old leather chair and then his soft, distant steps, _”just not sure it’s helpful.”_

Mickey takes a deep drag off his cigarette and removes it from his lips so he can suck on his teeth and slowly sift out the smoke, narrowing his eyes over his view of the Fairy Tail as he tries to remain calm. ”What is it?”

 _”I finally made contact with Split,”_ Lip reveals, but doesn’t sound as excited about it as Mickey would have expected, considering how long he’s been looking for the elusive hacker, _”fucking punk-ass kid in some middle-class suburb somewhere, I swear, he didn’t know shit about anything.”_

Mickey closes his eyes and sighs, returning the cigarette to his lips. They’d really put a lot of hope in these wannabe anarchists to at least give them some clue as to what was going on, if nothing else tell them something of how Ian’d managed to disappear so completely. They’d gone into the Gallagher attic a few months back, desperate to find some kinda proof that Ian is an actual existing person that should be searched for, the police insisting that there wasn’t a case when the missing person on all accounts seemed more like a figment of imagination than a real lost boy, only to find the old box of important papers inexplicably lacking Ian’s birth certificate. Realistically, Ian could have gone into the attic at any point the last few years and taken it out, but it just seems like such an absurdly meticulous thing to do. He could have gone away without this complete annihilation of his existence, without destroying every trace of his life lived with his family and with Mickey. This erasure seems larger than Ian, more extensive than what he should be capable of, more malicious than his ultimately sweet nature would allow.

”But?” Mickey tries, because please, fuck, let there be a but.

 _”But,”_ Lip repeats, bottles rattling when it sounds like he’s opening his fridge, _”he did point me to a dark network I didn’t know about.”_

”A network?” Mickey frowns and turns away from looking at the small crowd outside the club when someone shrieks and laughs. ”What kinda network?”

 _”A database,”_ Lip clarifies to the sound of a cap being twisted off a bottle of beer, _”a list.”_

Mickey thinks he should be frustrated with Lip’s slow reveal, but he isn’t. He knows Lip doesn’t do it to be an asshole, he’s collecting his thoughts. He probably called Mickey before he even knew what exactly it is that he’s found and now he’s trying to not get either of their hopes up in vain, in case it turns out to be nothing. He probably knows that Mickey’s terrified that he’s about to hear something he doesn’t want to hear.

 _”This lady in Macau lost her husband little over a year ago,”_ Lip says and sighs, sounding like he’s sitting down on his couch and taking a sip of his beer before he continues, _”one day he was there, she says, the next he was gone. I had to use this really crappy translation software, so there might be some shit lost in translation but uh-, gist of it seemed to be that within a month, she was the only one who still remembered him. They had two kids together, and they and everyone else claim that he died something like twenty years ago. She spent four months in a psych ward and when she got out she isolated herself in her house, and piece by piece tried to recreate stuff that’d gone missing. Drawing pictures of photos that she couldn’t find, making fake IDs, passports, certificates, diplomas. Anything she could think of that would kinda bring him back in some sense, you know?”_

Mickey says nothing, focusing on fighting the familiar urge to call bullshit. This is the exact fucking thing that’s happening to them, and he still thinks it sounds idiotic. Plain fucking common sense telling him the lady is nuts and that’s all there is to it.

 _”Anyway,”_ Lip continues, sounding like he’s having a hard time believing his own story, _”her home is like a shrine to this guy, now, and she put up some photos online, very basic site, kinda like just another record, repeating shit, uh- publishing it. Tryna make it stick somehow. But then people started sending her stuff, notes and letters, like-, detailing memories and moments and people, just thing after thing after thing about all these people who’ve disappeared in the same way, and their families looking for some way to like… record their existence.”_

”Lotta weirdos online, man,” Mickey says, giving in to the deeply set urge to be skeptical, ”doin’ fuckin’ anything to belong somewhere, be seen.”

 _”Yeah,”_ Lip agrees, but then sounds almost a little desperate when he tries to argue, _”but these aren’t just a couple of nutjobs, Mickey. There’s a list, and apparently it’s been growing exponentially in the last six months. It’s got over fifty thousand names on it.”_

Mickey frowns and tries to wrap his head around the number. It sounds like a lot, but people disappear all the time. Maybe it only sounds like a lot because Ian is one of them.

”What does that mean?”

 _”It means there are thousands others just like Ian,”_ Lip says, his voice shaking a little, from excitement or some other emotion Mickey can’t tell, _”people who no longer exist. It means there are probably a fuck ton more of them out there, too, and that this is like, uh-, a systematic thing, right? It’s a pattern. That Ian disappearing could be part of a phenomenon spanning across the whole world, swallowing people up and making them_ not be _. It means that I’ve only checked like a handful of the names, but so far they’ve all got two things in common.”_

Mickey is vaguely aware of the built up ash hanging off his cigarette, shaking and dropping off into the wind when his lips move. ”What?”

 _”They’d been searching for something right before they disappeared,”_ Lip says, _”and they knew they’d been caught.”_

A slow chill crawls its way up Mickey’s spine and tingles through his mind, hairs on end and thoughts racing.

”You want me to come over?” he asks, voice thick and his breath kinda shallow and stuck in his throat.

 _”Sure,”_ Lip says and there’s the soft sound of a lighter sparking to life, close to the phone’s mic, _”I’m thinking pizza, we can do a research party.”_

”Alright,” Mickey’s feet are already walking when he remembers where he is and he stops and turns back, ”lemme just tell his guy I can’t do tonight and I’ll be over in like, twenty minutes.”

 _”Shit,”_ Lip curses and sighs into the receiver before he speaks again, _”I forgot, you have a date tonight.”_

”It’s whatever,” Mickey dismisses him, relief and disappointment in equal measures flooding his mind and struggling for dominance. Relief wins out by miles.

 _”No,”_ Lip says, clicking his tongue and obviously trying to sound forceful, _”you’re moving on, it’s good, you should go on your date. I’m just gonna research this list anyway, I don’t need you here for that.”_

”You sure?” Mickey stops again, unwilling to go near the club until he’s figured this out.

 _”Yes,”_ Lip assures him emphatically, _”I know you don’t wanna move on, Mickey, but trust me. It’s good. You deserve to be fucking happy, you know?”_

”Was happy,” Mickey mutters before he can stop himself.

 _”Ian left you,”_ Lip sighs, they’ve had this conversation before, _”maybe he didn’t want to, but it’s still what he did. I appreciate all you’re doing for him, tryna find him, we all appreciate it. But you don’t gotta do it, you don’t owe him, or us, anything.”_

Lip likes to say this to Mickey, but the more he insists that this is the case, the less sense it makes to Mickey.

Ian had asked him to believe him, to help him, to come with him. And Mickey had denied him. He’d had good reason to do so, but the fact still remains. He made a choice and the choice pushed Ian away, possibly to face some kind of overwhelming danger all on his own, something with the apparent power to erase a whole person from their own life.

Mickey has his own, selfish reasons for wanting to find Ian, but more so than that, he just wants to make sure he’s safe.

”And you’re a fucking idiot if you believe that,” Mickey dismisses Lip’s attempts at being reassuring, and licking his lips over a slight smirk he thinks that somewhere along the line, ’idiot’’s stopped sounding like an insult, ”I’ma find him, and if he still wants me I’m fuckin’ his. Can’t change that.”

 _”You’re something else, Mickey,”_ Lip hums, not for the first time, _”my brother doesn’t know how lucky he is.”_

Mickey sucks on his teeth and shakes his head, lucky isn’t exactly the word he’d use.

 _”One date doesn’t mean anything,”_ Lip tries to convince him, _”best case scenario you get lucky and stop bein’ so fucking crabby for a couple of days, worst case you know you tried and still got that, uh-, black Loch Ness monster of a dildo back home to help take the edge off.”_

Mickey never should have let the douchebag into his home, fucker snooped around like a nosy old lady first chance he got. It’s not like Mickey hides his toys but he never thought he would have to, who in their right mind goes through another dude’s closet, anyway? ’I was high’ only excuses so much, in Mickey’s opinion.

”Fuck off,” Mickey tells him, without much heat, ”and fuck this, guess I’m going in. Gimme three things?”

Lip takes a second to think about it, and when he speaks again his voice is soft and thoughtful. _”Look on his face when I found his stash of porn mags.”_

Mickey chuckles and shakes his head. Ian told him about that, about being forced into having _the talk_ for the first time. ”What kinda asshole looks at his brother’s porn? That shit’s fucking private, I’da kicked you right in the balls if I was him.”

Lip huffs indignantly and through the tinny speakers of the phone he sounds so much like Ian it hurts. _”He did this thing with his eyebrows, we kinda laughed about it. Could’ve done better I guess, but it was good.”_

”Yeah, you did a fucking awesome job,” Mickey complains, ”tellin’ him he was bein’ gross for liking ass, yeah he told me, like you’ve never stuck it up some poor chick’s backdoor, don’t fucking think so.” 

Mickey grins when Lip lets out a sound of protest, a bit on the squeaky side to really convince. He’s happy to give Lip a hard time about it, but he also knows that Ian had good experiences coming out to his family, he always spoke of it like he was somehow proud of his siblings for handling it the way they did. Fuck knows Mickey had it worse, but he still feels like Ian’s expectations of his loving family must’ve been abysmally low to be happy with what he got, and that he deserved hell of a lot more in terms of love and reassurance. Some fucking pride. Maybe Mickey’s just projecting, or whatever. 

”Pancake dance,” he says, ”the dork never fuckin’ stands still when he cooks breakfast.”

Lip hums in agreement. _”Forget turning on the radio.”_

”Fuck, no, bad idea,” Mickey feels like his chest is contracting with each memory they’re pulling out of the darkness and locking down, but it feels so much better to remember and be sad, than to forget and not feel anything at all. He wonders if this is how Ian felt when he first got diagnosed and he refused his treatment.

 _”His dumb laugh, right?”_ Lip lists as his second thing, sounding a lot less certain of himself. Mickey can feel himself smiling at the mere thought and tries to do a decent impression of Ian’s goofy laugh, Lip immediately joining him and then breaking out in his own ridiculous snigger, _”yeah, that one.”_

Mickey feels like his whole face is growing warm when he tries to hear Ian’s laugh, tries to picture him. Moving around the apartment. Naked in their bed, big and warm and awkward, sometimes, long limbs all over the place once he falls asleep and absently starts grabbing for Mickey, to keep him close. Mickey chews on his lip and can’t stop himself from flashing a wide grin.

”He’s got a funny lookin’ mole on his ass,” he says as his second thing, ”like a bean.”

 _”Really?”_ Lip asks, _”I don’t remember that.”_

Mickey scoffs. ”Should fucking hope not, it’s like all the way up in there.”

 _”Fuck, man, why?”_ Lip complains. _”Fucking gross, I don’t wanna hear that about my own brother.”_

Mickey shrugs and grins wider. ”Tough shit, happen to love that mole, not gonna forget it just ’cause you don’t wanna hear about it.”

 _”Yeah right,”_ Lip huffs, _”guess scarring me for life was just a fucking bonus, huh?”_

Mickey shrugs and takes a final drag off his cigarette instead of answering, throwing the butt to the curb and waiting for Lip to come up with a third thing, slowly letting the smoke flow out his nose.

 _”His bad puns,”_ Lip eventually decides, and Mickey groans in agreement, _”and that little pleased smile right after.”_

For a second, Mickey considers bringing up the next level depravity going on when the punning started happening in bed, rare at first but then with alarming frequency, before, after, and even fucking during the main event, sometimes. Ian knew how to make Mickey laugh, laugh and cry and moan and everything in between, like it was easy. Smiling a little, Mickey decides to keep that one to himself. Some things he doesn’t have to say out loud in order to hold on to them.

”The first time he met my kid,” he says instead, swallowing over the sudden lump in his throat, ”it was-, they were like magnets or something. He didn’t seem nervous, he didn’t make a big deal outta it. I don’t know, I was nervous as fuck.”

Lip says nothing for a few seconds, and Mickey accepts the short reprieve to clear his throat and blink, his eyes a little moist in the cold wind.

_”How’s Yevy doing? Is he okay?”_

”Yeah, no, he’s fine,” Mickey says and clears his throat again, looking down at his shoes and thinking about lighting up another cigarette, he’s probably already fifteen minutes late for this goddamned date, maybe the guy’s given up and left, ”normal. Not sure he remembers.”

It’s an understatement that Lip lets slide, and a can of worms they’d both rather keep out of. It’d been a month since Ian disappeared when Mickey had slipped and accidentally mentioned Ian’s name in front of the kid, and Yevgeny hadn’t even flinched, acting like Mickey’d been talking about one of the many dull grownups only marginally in his life that he couldn’t bother keeping track of. Mickey’d basically called Lip mid-fucking-panic attack, locked in the bathroom and hissing into his phone so Yevgeny wouldn’t hear him, pacing the short length of the room, door to bathtub to door again, again and again and again, until he felt like he couldn’t breathe and he broke down admitting that he was starting to forget, too, silent tears just fucking flowing down his cheeks when Lip said he wasn’t alone.

It’s like Ian is slipping through his fingers, like the memory of him is fading into the background of the world. Mickey doesn’t think it’s because he’s in any way starting to get over his feelings for Ian, like well-meaning people will try and suggest to him as the natural course of these things, but because those feelings are being forcibly taken from him. Tugged out of his mind without his consent, and he’s having fucking none of it. It might be unhealthy as fuck, whatever, but he’s not letting go, not without a fight. Not when Ian might still need him.

But Lip was feeling it too, validating Mickey’s insane theories and his stubborn refusal to surrender. So they decided to help each other remember, tiny stupid details and specific memories, physical quirks and stuff Ian used to say. And Mickey decided that he’d let Yevgeny forget, not seeing much of an option when it already seemed a done deal. It felt wrong all the way into his bones, but it was the easier thing to do.

 _”So,”_ Lip breaks the silence after a couple of long seconds, _”how late are you right now?”_

”Fuck off,” Mickey smirks but looks at his watch anyway, ”twenty minutes. You think he’s still in there?”

 _”Hey,”_ Lip laughs, _”some things are worth waiting for, right?”_

Mickey makes him promise to call if there’s anything new, but maybe hold off until morning if it isn’t anything super urgent, just to be sure, and they hang up so Mickey can cross the street and finally enter the noisy club. He’s never been a fan of the club scene, associating it way too much with being in the closet and letting his fears turn into hate, lashing out at people daring to do their thing, live their lives and feel some pride doing it. He’d always just skirted the clubs, cruising people on the streets willing and ready for something rough and quick before calling it a night.

Then he’d been a dad, and married. It hadn’t been until after Terry passed that he’d covertly started dipping his toes into the daunting pool of dating. 

This guy, Tom, works in his building and Mickey would not be here right now, stamped on the hand by some fucking nineteen year old twink and making the effort to go out and expand on his narrow comfort zone, if Tom hadn’t asked him out and looked kinda good doing it, too. Mickey isn’t looking, but enough people keep telling him he needs to get ’back in the game’, whatever the fuck that means, for him to have found himself agreeing and suddenly _making plans_ , without really meaning to. Normally he’d suggest going for a beer somewhere a little more quiet, but normally he’d also be at home watching TV with his boyfriend and falling asleep on the couch, so, blaring music and minimal conversation might just do the trick considering the abnormal circumstances.

It’s a disaster. Tom is clearly annoyed off the bat by Mickey being late, and Mickey’s too busy thinking about Ian’s ass-crack mole to listen to half of what the guy is trying to tell him. They stand by the bar for an hour, Mickey sipping his way through a couple of grossly overpriced beers and Tom occasionally leaning over to try and start conversation, his frown deepening with every attempt falling flat at Mickey’s distracted feet. Mickey barely even notices it when some other dude comes up and asks the guy to dance, and Tom obviously takes the opportunity to put their suffering date out of its misery with open arms, wrapping them around the new dude’s neck and disappearing into the gyrating crowd.

Mickey finishes his beer and leaves out the back, his pleasantly buzzed brain telling him he’ll save as much as two whole minutes by taking the narrow back alley through the next block leading to the nearest station. This way he can be home quicker and shed his clothes and this day and slip into his bed, and end the night by rubbing one out while thinking about his apparently imaginary boyfriend, the way nature fucking intended.

He makes it maybe a hundred yards away from the club and around one fucking corner, before he realizes that someone’s following him. Not really worried, he still picks up his step, looking to make it out onto a main street before the guy catches up to him and most likely passes him, probably just another average Joe eager to get to the L as fast as possible.

The worry sets in when a second person suddenly steps out in front of him, blocking off the only exit and trapping him in the narrow alleyway. Groaning he sighs and lets his shoulders slump, glaring back that guy following him, and then again at the one in front. It’s dark and their dull silhouettes against the slight yellow street lights tell him nothing, except that they’re both taller and broader than him, and definitely not looking to play.

His eyes still adjusting to the darkness, he hears the gun before he can see it, the familiar click of the safety being released and the slight wind whistling down the empty barrel unmistakeable when it’s being raised and trained right at his head.

”Perfect,” he sighs and holds up his hands.

”Shut the fuck up,” the other guy hisses at him, bursting forward and putting a hand to Mickey’s chest to force him back, slamming him into the rough wall, ”give us your fucking money, cocksucker.”

The guy with the gun is standing back, one eye on Mickey and the other on the street. The first guy is so close Mickey can smell his breath, his pasty skin and shaved head all he can make out through the fucking pantyhose covering his face and bunching up around his neck.

”Alright, Jesus,” Mickey says and doesn’t even try to lower his hands, ”easy, fucking back pocket.”

He’s turned around and pushed into the cold stone wall, the guy’s elbow between his shoulder blades and quick, hot breath over his neck as he steps in closer to pat him down, pulling out his wallet.

Five years ago and Mickey would’ve fought tooth and nail to hang on to his money and his dignity, but not now. Seeing the gun catching the street light in the corner of his eye, all he can think of is Yevgeny. Money and dignity mean jack shit, they can have it all as long as he gets to go home and see his kid again.

So he stays pressed against the wall even as the guy steps back, rifling through the wallet and throwing it to the ground once it’s emptied, cursing when he only finds about fifty bucks in there. 

”What else,” he spits, saliva hitting Mickey in the neck when the guy steps back in, arm across Mickey’s shoulders and holding him firmly against the wall, ”fucking faggot, what else!”

”Got nothing else,” Mickey grits out, closing his eyes, blood boiling and his whole body strumming to push back against the guy and regain some power, ”phone, keys, that’s it.”

The pressure eases off his back for a second, only to be replaced by a hand to the back of his neck, pushing his face into the wall, cheek scraping and stinging across the rough surface.

It’s two guys and one gun, he can take them. He hasn’t been in a proper fight since he was eighteen, but he can take them. He can take them. He can’t die, he can’t abandon his kid like that. Whatever it takes, _just stay alive_.

He’s closing his eyes and bracing himself for the worst when there’s a quick scuffle behind him and suddenly the pressure on his back is gone.

”The fuck!” the guy exclaims and steps away from Mickey completely. Mickey balls up his fists but keeps them held over his head, only opening his eyes when the unmistakable sound of bone breaking echoes through the alley and his attacker lets out a wounded howl. Turning his head first, Mickey slowly steps around, staring at the lifeless body on the ground before he takes in the second attacker, cradling his arm and cursing as he starts backing away.

Mickey thinks he turns and runs out on the street, but he really couldn’t care less. He thinks he might be dead.

”Mick,” Ian says, sternly, and snaps Mickey out of some kind of catatonic fucking state, pulling his shifting, spinning focus to his beautiful, blurry face. 

He’s here, Ian’s here, he’s here as though he was here yesterday, and the day before that and before that for three months, but he wasn’t. He’s been gone. He can’t be here.

”Mickey,” Ian whispers, snapping Mickey’s attention up to his worried eyes. He’s close, he’s got his hands on Mickey’s shoulders, he looks the same, he smells the same, he feels the same, sensory memories flooding Mickey’s mind and body like they’ve never been gone. ”You okay? Are you hurt?”

Ian is touching his face, fussing and checking for his damage. Like he doesn’t know.

”Fuck you,” Mickey snarls and pushes at him, finally catching his breath when Ian stumbles back, looking at Mickey like a fucking kicked puppy.

A phone rings, the unfamiliar tone loud in the silent alleyway, and Mickey stupidly looks down at his fallen attacker before he realizes that the phone belongs to Ian. He watches as Ian slides it open and puts it to his ear, not leaving Mickey with his eyes for a second.

”Yeah?” he says and somehow manages to look even more grim. ”Fuck-, got it. Hang on.”

He lets the hand holding the phone drop down his side and Mickey knows what he’s about to say before he even opens his goddamned beautiful mouth.

”I gotta-”

Mickey doesn’t let him finish. He steps up to him and crashing their bodies together grabs him into a crushing embrace, clutching on to him and shaking with a bone deep sigh when he feels Ian’s strong, solid arms around him, cold tip of his nose and wet lips against his neck, kissing and breathing him in.

”I will find you,” Ian promises nonsensically, whispering the words into Mickey’s ear, before he slips out of his arms and turns away to run out on the street and disappear around a corner.

Mickey takes about half a second to recover before he runs after, searching up and down the street, in every dark corner and doorway, every alley and street, looking for any kind of trace of Ian, any sign that he’d been there just minutes earlier. There is nothing.

Ian is gone.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thank you for all your wonderful comments, you have no idea how much I appreciate them! The last few weeks have been a little overwhelming, trying to stick to this schedule, which is why I haven't gotten around to answering them yet, but I will <3


	7. Day 36498, year unknown

Day 36498, year unknown.

 

Ian rolls over to his secondary keyboard and frowning he brings up an isolated set of moving code on one of the smaller monitors. There’s some movement obscuring and blurring the scene but right in the middle of it, shining and familiar, is Mickey. Ian doesn’t even see the code anymore. When he first got unplugged it’d been confusing and overwhelming, but he doesn’t see the code anymore, just people and things, and Mickey. He sees a little too much of Mickey, probably, but he can’t help it. As long as he’s doing his job, he can’t find any harm in also keeping a watchful eye on his boyfriend.

He looks good, he’s got his nice grey button-down all ironed and tucked into his jeans, hair slicked back, a little bit of a stubble. He’s wearing the cologne Ian helped Yevgeny pick out and buy for Father’s day, Ian can see it in the slight addition to the code of Mickey’s natural scent. He’s standing outside the Fairy Tail, talking to someone on the his cell and all dressed up for business. He’s going on a date.

Ian tries to resist the urge for about ten seconds, then he glances quickly around the darkened, empty deck and lifts the headphones off his shoulders to hitch them up on top of his head, covering his ears. With hardly any effort at all he isolates Mickey’s phone call and patches in, Lip’s voice suddenly coming through and filling his ears.

_”-trust me. It’s good. You deserve to be fucking happy, you know?”_

_”Was happy.”_

Ian hasn’t done this in a while, he really tries to not flat out perv on the guy even though that pretty much is what he ends up doing anyway, and getting to hear Mickey’s voice never fails to run goosebumps from his hands and all the way up his neck and across his shoulders. It’s garbled and distant and not real, but it’s _him_. 

It’s good to hear Lip’s voice too, even when he’s saying things Ian could do without hearing.

_”Ian left you, maybe he didn’t want to, but it’s still what he did. I appreciate all you’re doing for him, tryna find him, we all appreciate it. But you don’t gotta do it, you don’t owe him, or us, anything.”_

_”And you’re a fucking idiot if you believe that, I’ma find him, and if he still wants me I’m fuckin’ his. Can’t change that.”_

_”You’re something else, Mickey, my brother doesn’t know how lucky he is. One date doesn’t mean anything, best case scenario you get lucky an-”_

Ian silences the call with a few hard taps at his keyboard, sighing and leaning back in his chair, frowning at the isolated, quiet cluster of code still confirming Mickey’s location, his agitated stance and the smoke curling up around his face from his cigarette. Ian knows Mickey’s code by heart at this point, down the very last character, and while looking at the green and glowing strands of information might be comforting, it’s not at all satisfying. He hates that looking at the code is all he’s got left, he wants to touch Mickey with his own hands, he wants it all back, wants to feel him, hear him, smell him. But he can’t.

He probably needs to let Mickey go, _but he can’t_.

He closes his eyes and lets out a slow, measured breath of air when he thinks of the last time he saw Mickey, of the mess he managed to make of the guy’s life even when he tried not to. Ian had been so sure that someone was after him, eyes in every dark window, cameras and microphones in every room. Every creeping car with tinted windows and every man in a suit and sunglasses, they were all looking at him, following him, out to get him. And in the end he hadn’t managed to keep Mickey out of it, even though he’d promised himself he would.

So he’d made a choice and it’d made perfect sense at the time, but not now. Now, finally having all his lifelong questions answered, there’s only one truth that really stands out; he made the wrong choice.

He chose the wrong goddamned pill.

Three months ago to the day he’d been standing in Mickey’s hallway, staring at his own reflection and listening to his boyfriend collecting himself in the kitchen. Knee shaking his whole body and fingernails pushing into the palms of his hands with his clenched fists, Ian thought about how he could go into Yevgeny’s bedroom and pick him up in his arms, carry him down the stairs and into his car. It would be so easy, and Mickey would _have_ to follow. They could go away, and be together.

 _You’re sick_ , he’d thought to himself, watching his reflection crumble with realization. Again and again and again, he could see his whole life stretching out before him as one long, constant reminder of something he shouldn’t be able to forget, but did anyway. _He’s sick_ , and he’s making Mickey’s life hell. He’s hurting Yevgeny.

They both deserve so much better.

So he makes a decision and he leaves. He thinks he’s probably crashing, hard, when he feels his eyes tear up and blur the street and the moving cars around him, their honking distant and foreign to his ears. When he thinks that he’s doing Mickey a favor by taking off again. When he doesn’t notice the black car with the tinted windows pulling up next to him until the doors fly open and two people dressed in black leather jump out to surround him and push him inside.

He thinks he’s probably full on hallucinating by the time he’s taken to an abandoned building to meet Faust, not the German one with the devil but the one who turns out has been monitoring him for weeks, and she is telling him that all he has to do in order to get the answer to the one question that has haunted him his whole life, is to take one pill. One little red pill.

He thinks that one more pill can’t hurt, and he follows her down the rabbit hole without considering the consequences, without realizing what it is that he’s giving up. He’s got a splinter in his mind and she offers to fix it, and he thinks that Mickey and Yevgeny are better off without him when his heartbeat picks up speed and he can feel the cold rushing through his body. He thinks his only regret is that he didn’t take the time to say goodbye, when he leans back in his chair and listens to the sound of his heart flatlining, accepting the cold and the darkness as it swallows him up and he takes his final breath.

His whole life, Ian’s never felt like he belonged. He didn’t mind so much when he was a kid and he had his sisters and brothers around him at all times, but it became a problem when he hit his teens. First he thought it was because he started looking at other boys in a way he shouldn’t, but then grabbing on to Roger Spikey’s donkey dick in the boys’ locker room at school, awkwardly trying to tongue-kiss him as they furiously jerked each other off, felt about as far away from wrong as you could get. No, it was something else, something was missing.

Something was wrong.

Then he thought that joining the army would be the answer, falling in line and flat out ignoring the question. It was all he could think of to do and for a while it seemed right, until he was just past eighteen and two weeks into basic training, and he realized that having someone yell at him while he’s doing pushups in the mud didn’t do squat to ease his mind.

He remembers it so clearly, climbing into that helicopter and thinking ’how hard can it be?’. He hadn’t even managed to get the thing off the ground before he was arrested and pushed face first into the ground.

Being diagnosed with bipolar made a lot of sense. He’d fought it tooth and nail for a long time, refusing to believe that he was somehow a slave to his DNA, that he was destined to cause himself and those around him pain, that he wasn’t in charge of his own life, his own future. But it made sense, it made so much sense that once he’d accepted the diagnosis it almost felt _too easy_. He didn’t belong because he was different, he was sick. _Something_ wasn’t wrong, it was him. Simple as that.

 _He_ was wrong.

He was told the pills would fix him, but they didn’t. When they worked, they balanced him out and took away the worst of his peaks and valleys but they still never made him feel like he somehow could belong, and they still didn’t answer the question.

This question that had haunted him his whole life, but he didn’t even know how to ask. This question that went from _what_ to _who_ to _when_ , and when he found the words to express it, still didn’t make any sense at all.

A question that had him up night, night after night, sat at his computer and searching the internet for answers only to find that there were none. Only to find a handful others just like him, all asking the same thing.

_What is the Matrix?_

”The Matrix is a virtual reality pulled over your eyes from birth, to control you, to enslave you,” Faust explains to him, like he’s just one in a long line of unplugged refugees stumbling around her ship, pulling the thermal blanket closer around himself and shivering in the relentless cold, ”to billions of people it’s ’reality’, but thanks to a marginal error in the code, there’s a small percentage to whom it’s a prison from which escape is possible.”

She stops and turns to him, pausing them right outside the cockpit to look up at him and smile, like she’s the keeper of every answer to every question he’s ever had.

He thinks that right now, the only question that still remains relevant is ’when do I get to go home?’.

”Every moment of your life thus far has only been about one thing,” she says, clasping him by the shoulder, ”power.”

He stares back at her, she’s already told him all of this. Explained the whole situation, talked him through every step of his liberation. But it’s been with a kind of bored sense of repetition, like she’s done this so many times that she’s become a host, an expeditor, putting in minimal effort to show the new guy the ropes and showing minimal interest in actually, properly acclimatizing him to his new life.

”In there, you were a battery, a single cell within their power plant,” she continues, and gets a slightly harsher edge to her tone, ”do not dwell on the past, everything you felt and did in there was a lie, orchestrated by the enemy.”

Pursing his lips together and pulling the blanket up over his shoulders he dips his head, and thinks he probably looks like he’s agreeing with her.

”For one hundred years we have fought the machines,” she says, turning away from him again to climb the small staircase up into the nose of the hovercraft, ”searching out people like us to offer them the opportunity to be free, a chance to fight back.”

Glancing over her shoulder at Ian, she walks into the cockpit and sits down on the free chair next to the pilot, Ian can’t remember his name. She spins the chair around a little to give Ian another knowing smile, looking at him through narrowed eyes when he stops in the rounded doorway to awkwardly cross his arms and peer out the front, at the glum, derelict sewers only barely lit up by their searching, blueish headlights.

”Welcome to reality,” she says and leans back in her chair, ”welcome to the revolution.”

He tears his eyes from the dark tunnel in front of them to look at her, meet her steady gaze until she appears satisfied with what she sees and turns her chair around again to dance her hands over the control panels, pulling up a scan of their surroundings on one of the monitors.

For years, Ian has lived with the fear of his own mind lying to him, of his paranoia and delusions taking him places from where he might not be able to return. He almost wants to believe that he’s deep inside some kind of psychosis right now, and that if he only fights it he might find himself in a padded room somewhere, straightjacket pulling him into a self-administrated hug. Then he would truly be lost, but he would still have the comfort of someone waiting for him on the outside. Someone to return to, to come home to. Someone.

But this isn’t a lie, it’s not a delusion. He knows this with devastating certainty because the lie had always made sense and _still_ managed to feel wrong. None of this makes any sense at all, wars and machines and a broken sky, yet it’s like his mind has been forced into a square box his whole life and now it’s been poured into a perfect mould, the new reality fitting around him like he’s actually supposed to be there. He’s on a ship, hovering through the post-apocalyptic remains of a civilization long since gone, sewerage stretching for miles and miles underground the only thing that remains. He’s spent two days on a metal slab with foot-long needles poking out of every inch of his skin, rebuilding his atrophied muscles, and he’s seen the towers with his own eyes, waking up inside the power plant and tearing through the membrane of his pod, pulling out the feeder stuck to his mouth and all the way down inside his stomach.

He’s seen the desert of the real, he’s seen the scorched sky and he’s seen the fields where humans are grown, long-legged machines selecting and plucking ripe fetuses off their synthetic stems to carry them to the towers and plug them in to the Matrix, to fit into the code and live their lives unaware of their real purpose. To generate power, and sustain the victors of the last great war of Earth.

”I can’t go back,” he says and takes a shaky breath when Faust and the pilot don’t even pause what they’re doing to consider his pathetic statement, ”can I?”

”No,” Faust confirms, voice a little absent but firm as she points something out to her second in command, ”extraction from the plant is permanent, and we have removed all your code from the Matrix.”

”Besides,” the pilot hums as he’s flipping a couple of switches and steers them around a corner into yet another dark tunnel, ”knowing all this, would you really want to?”

_Yes._

Mickey is walking inside the Fairy Tail and Ian has to force himself to look away when strange lips smile at his arrival, shape around a greeting, press against Mickey’s cheek, a spark of heat under the brief contact. He can feel the jealously like heartburn, crawling up his throat and searing him from the inside out, as he tries to busy himself by sweeping his eyes over the other monitors and only feels slightly guilty over the fact that Mickey’s ongoing date might be pulling a little more of his focus than entirely justifiable. 

But he can’t get himself to close that tiny bit of connection he’s still got left, so he leaves Mickey’s seemingly successful date to run its course on the screen, and tries to distract himself by searching out a late night radio station, patching in to the internal frequency and running it through a program he’s written himself that accurately translates code from the Matrix to music, filling his mind with familiar sounds and flooding his whole body with memories.

It’s strictly speaking not allowed but ever since he left the military vessel that unplugged him to crew the Nightingale instead, he’s found himself taking every little opportunity he can find to bend the rules and give himself some peace of mind. Essentially being a bunch of hacker, anarchist revolutionaries, no one in his command has ever flat out told him he can’t listen to music from the Matrix, but some things don’t need to be said out loud to somehow be abundantly clear, anyway. He’s not supposed to dwell on the past. Zion has its own music, its own culture, real and free and _right_.

The last city, deep inside the Earth where it’s still warm, Zion has everything he needs. Zion is where he’s supposed to belong.

His whole life, there’s only one place he’s truly felt like he belonged and he took it for granted. He left them, thinking they deserved better, unconsciously thinking he could return once the storm had settled, still stubbornly unaware of how fundamentally these two people had changed his life and made him a home, carved out a space for him where he could finally fit, where he could belong.

He is painfully aware of it now, and if he could go back he would, in a heartbeat. But he can’t, and the best thing he can do for Mickey and Yevgeny, for his family, is to let them forget, let the Matrix heal over and fill in the empty gap left behind his extraction until there is nothing left of him, not even pain.

But he’s never been very good at doing what’s best. Not for himself, not for anyone.

He springs forward in his chair when something touches him on lightly on the shoulder. He tears off his headphones and lets them fall down his lap, music leaking out the padded earpieces loud and clear, and turns his head to let out a relieved breath.

”I found something,” Tang says and only smiles knowingly at Ian’s reaction and openly guilty countenance when she pulls the other chair closer to him and sits down. She cradles her tablet in her lap and foregoes explaining herself to him any further so she can tap her fingers over the worn screen.

”What?” he asks and mutes the music, putting the headphones away on the already cluttered desk so he can roll himself a little closer and lean in over her elbow to see what she’s doing.

”It’s not a match,” she says as she brings up a scan of a pod and carefully hands him the tablet, ”but it’s close.”

Ian takes it in his hands and stares at the information on the screen, stares at the outline of a still body, a little less than half the size of the pod.

”Look,” Tang hums and points to a set of code in the bottom corner, ”that’s his DNA, right? It’s only a couple of variables different from what you’re looking for.”

Ian swallows over the lump in his throat. ”Family?”

”Most likely close, too,” she nods and points to a number at the top, ”here, 46104, that’s like… five years, a little more?”

”Yevgeny,” Ian breathes out and carefully touches his fingertips to the screen, the green light of the scan pulsating gently under the contact.

Tang leans back in her seat a little and Ian can tell she’s looking at him, but he can’t tear his eyes off Yevgeny’s scan, trying to soak up as much of the information as he can, even though most of it makes very little to no sense to him.

”What’s that?” she asks. He glances up at her in a half-hearted attempt at judgement but can’t help crack a small smile as he looks back down at the tablet.

”Yevgeny,” he repeats, just because he hasn’t said the name out loud in three months and he’s missed the sound of it, ”it’s his son.”

Tang doesn’t say anything and when he glances up at her she’s just looking back at him, her dark eyes free of judgement or pity. She’s the first and only friend he’s managed to make in the real world, and he’s not even sure if they _are_ friends. He’d been with the Locust for about three weeks before they’d touched base in Zion and he had requested a transfer to the Nightingale. The Locust had done ten more extractions in the few weeks he crewed it, one of which had ended up dead even before they could get to him and pick him up from the recycling tanks. They weren’t bad people, but they were a military vessel in midst of war, a war Ian didn’t know anything about. A war he felt less sure about the more he found out.

The Nightingale is a medic and rescue ship, they almost never hack the Matrix and have no extraction agenda. They’re strictly on standby, sneaking through the sewers, ready to come to the aid of other ships after sentinel attacks or self-induced EMP-blasts. Tang is an engineer and as far as Ian can tell, she’s been crewing the Nightingale for well over a decade, part of the initial group that suggested its usefulness to the council. Besides that, all he knows about her is that she is quiet and solid, and she doesn’t ask him questions or demand his immediate, unyielding loyalty. And when he asked her for a way to search for Mickey’s comatose body amongst the billions of other bodies in the power plant, she hadn’t said no or even reported him to Captain Lake. Instead she knocked on his bunk door two days later, in the middle of the night, and with only the smallest frown betraying her concern she showed him a program she obviously must have been working on for a while, able to patch in and hitch a ride on the power plant’s internal systems without detection, slowly sifting through every man, woman, and child connected to the Matrix, and able to single out specific persons as long as you had access to their hardwired information.

He doesn’t know why she had this unapproved piece of software ready at hand, or why she’s sticking her neck out to help him when he isn’t even sure why he’s doing it himself, but he finds himself trusting her explicitly, and he is endlessly thankful for her seemingly random decision to tolerate his company.

”What are you going to do?” she asks, looking uncharacteristically curious when he sits back in his chair and glances at her.

”Don’t know,” he sighs, huffing out a stifled, unhappy laugh at his situation and rubbing absently at the back of his neck, scratching lightly around the cold metal edge of his headjack, ”nothing, I can’t… I can’t make this decision for ’em. Mickey- Mickey’s perfect, you know? He’s perfectly assimilated, he’d never even be _considered_ for extraction. Even if he were, man-, I could never do that to him.”

Ian rests the tablet on his knees, only holding on to it with one hand as he scrubs the other over his face.

”If I went in there and told him any of this,” he mutters and shakes his head, ”he already thinks I’m crazy, but this-, it’s too much. He’s got his kid, and his sister, his brothers, his ex-wife, you know? He’d never say it but he needs them, they need him. I can’t go in there and ask him to come with me and-, what? Live here in this cold, hopeless world? In the middle of a fucking war? It’s too much.”

Tang nods, just the slightest inclination of her head. ”Then why are you looking for him?”

Ian frowns and looks down at the tablet, at all the information telling him exactly where Yevgeny is nestled inside the machines’ vast power plant.

”Don’t know,” he says and shakes his head, that’s not true, ”need to know he’s safe. Need to know he’ll _be_ safe, whatever happens.”

”And maybe also,” Tang starts and actually kinda smiles when Ian looks up at her amused tone, ”because you just _have_ to know how his date’s going?”

Ian groans and slumps back in his chair, smirking a little as he dramatically shields his eyes from the monitor still zeroed in on Mickey’s code.

”Is it bad?” he asks and squeezes his eyes closed, bracing for the answer.

Tang chuckles, the sound low and pleasant. ”Yes.”

”Don’t fucking tell me if they’re making out,” Ian complains and actually fucking means it, even though he’s still trying to sound like he’s joking.

”No, I mean,” Tang is really smiling when Ian cracks open an eye to look at her, ”it’s really _bad_. It looks very awkward.”

He can’t resist, lowering his hand he spins the chair around just enough so he can see Mickey again, leaning back with his elbows on the bar, bottle of beer hanging from his hand as he casually surveys the club and smirks a little when his date leans over to say something into his ear. Truthfully, he just looks the way Ian would expect him to look, on a first date in a gay club on a Thursday night. He doesn’t look ecstatic about it or anything, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t enjoying himself, that doesn’t mean he won’t follow his date home when he is inevitably invited to complete the night.

He should probably stop looking, it’s creepy as fuck what he’s doing, especially now when Mickey’s finally starting to give in to the Matrix cleaning up the last of Ian’s code and pushing him towards forgetting about his disappearing ex.

”This is him?” Tang asks and extends a hand to gingerly peel off the photograph Ian’s taped to one of the monitors.

”Yeah,” Ian hesitates, frowning a little. They’ve been looking at the guy’s code for the last five minutes, she should know what Mickey looks like by now. Tang doesn’t look up from the picture to shrug at his unspoken question.

”I don’t see people anymore,” she mumbles, almost to herself rather than for Ian’s benefit, ”just code.”

Head bent, she worries gently at the edge of the printed headshot with the tip of her pointer finger, cradling the photo in her hands.

”He looks nice,” she eventually decides and looks up when Ian snorts, ”he isn’t?”

Ian smiles wider, shaking his head. ”Nicest guy I know.”

He reaches out and takes the photograph when Tang hands it over, looks down at Mickey’s half-bored, half-scowling portrait. Mickey is not a big fan of having his photograph taken and this was the best Ian could do when he got piss drunk two months ago and went looking for something to print. It’s the ID photo they’d taken of him when Mickey started his current job. Ian’d prefer to print like a fucking screen shot or something, maybe coming out of the shower all bouncy-assed and wet, but that’s not how this shit works. Besides, sobering up and sitting on his narrow bunk he’d looked at that fucking picture and cried bitter tears, only grinning through the snot and the wetness once he realized how much worse off he’d have been if Mickey’d been naked or smirking in the picture.

Smiling down at Mickey’s scowling face he can feel the familiar prickling behind his eyes, sighing at himself and forcing back the swell of emotion with a quick sniff.

”Only together six months,” he mumbles, just like he’s been trying to convince himself since he was unplugged. Only six month, only a short while. The rest of all fucking time. ”He’s kinda all I ever wanted.”

”You know,” Tang interrupts his pity-party with a small, sideways smile, eyes trained on the monitors when he glances at her, ”this year it’s been fifteen years since I was unplugged. Back then-, it wasn’t like this.”

She pulls herself closer to the desk by gripping the edge of it, and absently taps at one of the keyboards to bring up a new set of code on monitor three.

”Potentials were… groomed, courted,” she says, shrugging a shoulder like the word isn’t exactly what she was looking for, but close enough, ”lost souls, most of us isolated and with nothing to lose. It’s very different now.”

This isn’t something anyone ever talks about, Ian’s understood that much. He feels it in his own bitter acceptance of his new situation, he sees it in every new person extracted quickly and carelessly from the Matrix, only to find out that freedom and answers come with the non negotiable condition of them being ostracized from their friends and family left behind, and them fighting in a war they’re likely to lose, no matter how many new recruits Zion can manage to draft. But it’s not something that’s talked about and he’d almost resigned himself to the belief that he’s alone in thinking there’s something wrong with what’s going on.

Apparently he’s _not_ alone, even though Tang still doesn’t seem entirely comfortable when she hints at her own doubts.

”I only had one thing inside the Matrix that I miss now,” Tang admits with a thoughtful nod, steering clear of the more obviously mutinous topic, ”one crappy old photograph.”

”Yeah?” Ian takes the opportunity to really look at her while she’s busy, her black hair always in a bun on top of her hair, her skin only a little wrinkled in the corners of her dark eyes. ”What was if of?”

”Me,” she hums and pauses for a few seconds before she continues, ”and my sister.”

Reluctant to push her too far, ask her questions she doesn’t want to answer, he licks his lips and thinks about what to say.

”You ever watch over her?”

”No,” she says and for a few seconds he thinks that’s all he’s gonna get, but then she sits back and lets out a slow breath, smiling a little when she no doubt can tell that he’s looking at her, ”we grew up together, when she aged out a year ahead of me I wanted to leave the orphanage with her… but she told-, she begged me to stay, finish school.”

”What happened to her?” Ian asks when she seems to hesitate.

”I don’t know,” she says and nods to herself, her slight frown deepening, ”she was alone in Taipei, no job, nothing. She never told me what she did for money that year but I knew anyway. No one cared when she disappeared, only me.”

”You’ve been looking for her,” Ian’s guessing, nodding towards the tablet, ”that’s why you had that software ready to go when I asked you to help me?”

”I’ve been developing it to run facial recognition,” she reveals, ”trying to remember what she looks like. I have no recorded information of her, nothing, no picture. All I have are memories.”

”That why you’re helping me?” he asks, the question coming out in a whisper. She doesn’t confirm it, but doesn’t deny it either. ”Why don’t you run your DNA?”

He frowns when she seems reluctant to answer.

”She’s not really my sister,” she eventually admits, sounding casual but still avoiding Ian’s curious gaze.

He doesn’t say anything but lets the silence settle comfortably between them. He doesn’t want to assume too much, but if Tang was in a relationship with another girl, growing up in an orphanage in Taiwan in the seventies and eighties, she’d probably learned to keep that shit under tight wraps. Ian’s been pretty open about this stuff ever since he stopped falling for married men, but he’s no stranger to being in the closet as some kind of default safety precaution. He’s never been interested in announcing himself, even though some people seem to think that means he’s hiding. It isn’t, he knows what it’s like to really hide, and there’s a difference.

But when he thinks about it, he hasn’t exactly felt inclined to tell anyone about his sexual preferences since he was unplugged, besides accidentally revealing himself to Tang by getting a little too drunk on the ship’s moonshine one night and sobbing into his cup about losing Mickey. The real world is very different from the Matrix, in many ways, but for all their forward thinking equality they’re still a society hellbent on survival, and he thinks that maybe, subconsciously, he hasn’t felt entirely comfortable letting people know that he really isn’t up for breeding with anyone, not even if the survival of mankind depended on it. Not without some kinda turkey baster buffer tossed into the mix, anyway.

He bows his head and strangely feels like he’s taken a step ten years back in time, instead of a hundred years forward, when he chooses to leave his thoughts unsaid, and their connection unspoken.

”It’s over,” Tang says and for a second he isn’t sure what she’s referring to, but following her line of sight he feels his heart kinda soar and break at the same time when Mickey’s date dances off into the crowd with someone else, and Mickey’s left to look cooly unaffected and finish his beer before he makes his way through the sweaty crowds and leaves out the back door.

”Hold on to it, Red,” Tang advices him, but he’s not sure if she means Mickey, or his old life, or just the photo that’s being bent slightly out of shape in his firm grip, releasing when she glances down and he follows her to look at it and try to press it flat against his thigh. ”Keep it safe.”

He nods and instead of sticking it back up on the monitor, like he likes to do when he’s got a shift and keeping vigil over the constant buzz and feed of information rushing through and making up the Matrix makes him extra homesick, he flattens out the picture one more time and then folds it in half, sliding it carefully into a pocket.

”My name is Ian,” he says quietly and glances up at her, trying to gauge her reaction. ’Red’ was just his handle whenever he went online inside the Matrix, it was never a name to which he felt any kind of connection. But it’s the name they started calling him when he chose to leave his old life behind in search of answers, it’s the name of his emancipation. No one ever talks about their past names, like they no longer carry relevance, like they belong buried with the rest of their virtual pasts. He feels like he’s breaking a cardinal rule just by admitting that he used to be anyone other than Red, that he still thinks of himself as Ian Gallagher, and as a brother, a son, a partner, a step-father.

They can take a lot away from him, but not this.

Tang nods and for a second it looks like she might be gearing up to return the favor, when her eyes flit to the side and she frowns, sitting up a little straighter.

”Gun,” she says and points at Mickey’s monitor when Ian turns to see what she’s talking about, ”there.”

Mickey’s turning into a dark, narrow alleyway and Ian’s got a hard time seeing anything but his boyfriend’s luminous code, but then there’s a flash of something. Cold metal stuck down the back of dirty jeans, plaid boxers sticking up over the belt and a bomber jacket covering the harsh shape. Someone’s hiding behind a dumpster a few hundred feet in front of Mickey and it’s not hard to figure out why.

”Another one,” Tang announces and swiftly isolates another set of code with a few taps over the keyboard, ”it’s a setup.”

Ian stares at the second guy, stalking after Mickey into the alleyway, and it takes him a full second to react. But then he springs out of his chair and quickly walks around the console and over to the core behind it, pulling down the screen next to one of the chairs and tapping it to bring up his profile.

”Red,” Tang warns him, still seated by the hub.

”Are we on broadcast depth?” he asks and ignores her set face when he turns around to jump up in the reclining chair, turning the screen with him so he can punch in the last information before he lies down completely.

”Ian,” Tang tries, coming up by his side and looking down at him, ”this is not-”

”Are we on depth?” Ian asks again, hoping he’s sounding as unreasonable as he’s feeling. She nods. ”Good, open up a line, I’m going in.”

She presses her lips together and looks at him, clearly not at all convinced.

”Now!” he exclaims, feeling the adrenaline turn into shakes, urging him to do something, anything. ”Please.”

She doesn’t say anything but she nods and all her reluctancy is flipped into quick efficiency as she helps him strap in and pulls down the data probe, touching him briefly on the forehead and locking their eyes together before she puts the probe to his headjack and slides it in.

He’s in an empty room, dark and cold and it wouldn’t have seemed much different from the deck of the Nightingale if it hadn’t been for the breeze of cold, fresh air and distant, busy noise of a city coming through the broken window. There’s a black Bakelite phone in the middle of the room, sat on top of a tall, worn side table, and it’s ringing.

Ian steps up to it and quickly puts the heavy receiver to his ear.

”I’m in,” he says, ”where is he?”

 _”Four blocks South, Southeast,”_ she tells him, back at the console judging by the sound of her keyboard in the background, _”window to your left.”_

Ian takes a step closer to the window, holding the receiver out so he can lean over and look down at the street far below.

”Shit,” he says and puts the phone back to his ear, ”the fuck am I?”

 _”Eleventh floor,”_ Tang informs him cooly, _”see those four buildings? They’ll lead you straight to him.”_

Ian curses under his breath and looks over at the neat row of flat rooftops stretching out before him, just a street-width apart from him and each other.

”I haven’t done the jump program since I was unplugged,” he feels like he has to tell her, even though it won’t change anything.

 _”Like riding a bicycle,”_ she says, as he pretty much expected, _”there’s a phone in your pocket and a gun in your holster-, shit, hurry, they’ve got him trapped.”_

Ian throws the receiver down on the hook and backs up to the far wall of the empty room, before he pulls in a quick breath and then makes a running start for the busted window. Diving through it head first he kinda twists through the air and curls up to land on the roof of the opposite building in a roll, not slowing down for a second as he uses the momentum of the jump to get back on his feet and run across the rough concrete and immediately leap over to the next building. It’s easier than he remembers, he fell like a fucking brick when Faust ran the training program with him. He couldn’t let go even for a second and she didn’t push him to try again.

Now he doesn’t think, he just runs across the second roof and jumps to the third, hardly even noticing the lights and sounds of the traffic passing by under him as he flings himself over the wide gap. Landing on the fourth roof he slows down and jogs over to the edge, leaning over it to spy down into the narrow alleyway.

”-gt, what else!” a voice suddenly calls out, bouncing off the walls and reaching Ian all the way up on the roof. Ian silently moves to his left, so the fire escape doesn’t obscure the scene below. Dumpster-guy’s got the gun out, pointing it right at where his associate is pushing Mickey into the brick of the building.

”Got nothing else, phone, keys, that’s it.”

Hearing Mickey’s voice, small and angry and distant, pulls Ian back into action. Not pausing to overthink it, he grabs the raised edge of the roof and swings his legs over, silently dropping himself down along the side of the building. He catches on to a windowsill after free falling two floors, and then lets go to grab on to another one after another three floors, dangling from it for a second as he glances down to estimate the distance between him and the ground, and the two men about to fucking die.

Swinging back a little he gets his knees up and puts the toes of his shoes to the wall, pushing off enough to drop the last three floors and land perfectly on top of the guy with the gun, going down on impact and staying down when Ian grabs him by the hair and pulls his head up, only to smack it back down into the dirty cobblestone. 

Eyes trained on guy number two, still pinning Mickey to the wall and pressing up against him, Ian’s dealt with number one and gotten on his feet before the guy’s even had time to turn around.

”The fuck!” he exclaims and stares at his fallen associate for a second before he finally lets go of Mickey to run at Ian.

Ian doesn’t even have to try very hard, and he has no qualms at all about breaking the guy’s arm, the snap of the bone loud in the silent back alley when he grabs him by the wrist and shoulder and before the guy’s even had time to blink, twists it unnaturally and kicks up his knee to cause some more permanent damage.

The guy howls in surprise and pain, staring at Ian like he’s barely seeing him as he backs away, cradling his limp, twisted arm and turning on his heels to run back where he came from. Ian doesn’t care, because Mickey has turned around too and he’s bleeding, face scraped up and eyes flitting around but never quite landing on Ian, mouth hanging open but no sound coming out.

”Mick,” Ian says but gets no reaction what so ever, so he tries to sound a little more certain, ”Mick!”

Mickey flinches and his eyes seem able to focus on Ian for a second, before they drift down and Mickey sags back against the wall, shaking his head.

”Fuck,” Ian bites out and quickly steps closer, holding Mickey up by the shoulders and trying to ignore the overpowering sensation of finally being close to him again, feel him through the thin fabric of his jacket, hear the sound of his labored breathing, breathe in his scent, cigarettes and sweat and a hint of that cologne, he really liked that cologne. It’s not real, it’s not any more real than watching the code fall down his monitor, feeding him the exact same information. But it’s so different.

”Mickey,” he whispers and kinda feels something snap inside him when Mickey looks up at him again, staring through him, ”you okay? Are you hurt?”

Mickey has been fighting so hard to remember Ian, to hold on to everything the Matrix wants to remove now that Ian’s been unplugged. Ian knows how strong Mickey is and, probably better than anyone, how fucking stubborn he can be. But Ian bursting back into existence like this is probably not only messing with him on some kinda personal, emotional, fucked up level, the same way Ian’s feeling weak at the knees and drunk on Mickey’s presence, but on top of all that are his mind and body and code, firing on all cylinders to try and explain how Ian can be and not be at the same time.

Ian knew he should have stayed away, but he can’t, _he can’t_. He puts his hands to Mickey’s face and feels for damage, his instincts taking over to start worrying about concussions in addition to everything else.

”Fuck you!” Mickey suddenly snarls and he sure seems to see Ian now, pushing him back and staring at him like _Ian’s_ the one who tried to mug him and threaten his life. No, Ian’s just the guy who broke his fucking heart.

And Ian’s the guy who’s about to say something most likely incredibly stupid and useless when his phone suddenly rings, the shrill tone like a bucket of water over his head when he remembers where he is. He slides it open and puts it to his ear, eyes firmly on Mickey.

”Yeah?”

 _”Sentinels,”_ Tang’s voice comes through, adding a whole block of ice to that bucket of water, _”ETA ten minutes.”_

”Fuck-,” he bites out and closes his eyes for a split second before he looks back at Mickey, ”got it, hang on.”

Letting his hand drop down his side and moving Tang’s urgent voice out of range, he thinks he should do the right thing and tell Mickey it’s over, give him the goodbye he deserved three months ago, give him the opportunity to move on without guilt or fear of something having happened to Ian to keep him away.

”I gotta-,” he starts but doesn’t get any further before Mickey’s stepping towards him and pulling him into his arms, taking his breath away. He can’t do it, _he can’t do it_ he thinks as he grabs his arms around Mickey’s waist and clings to him, clutching him close and breathing him in, pressing mindless kisses against his warm skin, up the side of his neck.

He needs to leave, now, before Mickey decides to do something stupid like kiss him and most certainly distract Ian enough to kill him dead in five minutes when he doesn’t get to an exit point in time, before the sentinels reach the Nightingale and Lake is forced to fire the EMP, severing the link between Ian’s body and mind inside the Matrix.

They will do it. If it’s down to the ship or him, they _will_ choose the ship, especially since his little unauthorized vigilante hack stunt most likely was the thing attracting the attention of the machines in the first place.

Unwilling to leave without saying _something_ , it’s the only thing on his mind that manages to come out when he puts his lips to Mickey’s ear and whispers; ”I will find you.”

 _You’re an idiot,_ he thinks as he’s running away, but he can’t help the wide, ecstatic smile, skin tingling and heart beating with adrenaline and plain fucking pure arousal at having been so close to Mickey again, even for a short, stolen, stupid moment. He makes a sharp turn as soon as he gets out on the main street, pretty fucking sure Mickey isn’t just going to stand around after all this and not try to follow him, and he’s running down another dingy alley when he puts the phone back to his ear.

 _”-the fuck on, Red,”_ Tang chants on the other end.

”Operator,” he greets her and turns another corner, almost running into a couple walking in the other direction, ”exit?”

 _”Same one you went in, baby,”_ she says, sounding incredibly relieved to hear his voice, _”sharp left! There’s a door the next street down with structural damage.”_

”Time,” Ian asks, swerving around another late night group of people.

 _”6 minutes, still incoming,”_ she reports, _”you’re in trouble.”_

”No shit,” he mumbles and slows down a little when he turns in on the right street, trying to find the door, ”blue?”

 _”Brown,”_ she says the same moment he sees it, moving over to it to aim a firm kick right over the lock, busting the door wide open, _”straight ahead, got the lift ready.”_

”Amazing,” he huffs and bursts through the corridor only to lay eyes on the elevator the second it dings and opens. He’d been mentally preparing himself to run up eleven flights of stairs.

After ten seconds inside the painstakingly slow elevator he almost wishes he would have, shaking and revving to spring back into action a soon as the doors slide open again. He can hear the phone ringing at the end of the corridor when they do and he’s squeezing through them and running even before the rickety deathtrap of an elevator has had time to properly stop.

 _”1017,”_ Tang tells him as he runs through the corridor, past 1011, 1012, 1013, _”5 minutes, come on.”_

He shoulders his way through the door to 1017 and throws the cellphone aside as he runs up to the landline and picks it up.

Feeling the data probe being pulled out of the hole lodged into the back of his head is something Ian thinks he’s never going to get used to. The only good thing about it is that it’s over quickly and after the yucky sensation fades he can focus on his more permanent problems, like how he’s stuck in a post-apocalyptic hell-verse and he just endangered his whole crew ’cause he wanted to play the hero to his estranged boyfriend, stuck in a virtual reality mind-prison.

He blinks up at Tang who offers him a tightlipped smile and moves down to his feet to undo the last of his straps. She helps him off the chair and together they silently move through the ship, joining the rest of the crew gathered in the cockpit.

”One minute,” Cole announces under his breath, sinking down lower in his seat and hovering his hand over the prepared EMP trigger.

There’s six of them, crewing the Nightingale. Lake, Cole and Tam are all physicians in addition to Captain, First Pilot and First Lady in charge of the laundry rota, Tang and Keros are engineers and old-school hackers, and Red, well, Red is Ian and right now he’s not good for anything except regret, and thinking about what he could have had if he’d only left well enough alone. If he’d only known.

They come from all over the world and they’ve all ended up where they are now for vastly different reasons, but right this moment they are one, staring out the front of the unmoving hovercraft as the squid-like sentinels follow their cold signal all the way up to the ship. For a brief moment, it looks like they’re about to lose interest and move on, but then something catches their attention and as one they all turn towards the cockpit and gather outside the reinforced, blast-proof window. 

”How many?” Lake whispers, trying not to move a muscle as she does.

Keros is closest to the scan, and able to read it with a sideways glance. ”Twenty, Captain. All within range.”

”Cole,” Lake breathes out, ”at my command.”

Suddenly there’s a scurry of activity outside, followed by sharp thuds and clanks echoing through the ship as the sentinels clamp on to the hull to try and breach it, welding and bending it open.

”Now,” Lake orders and Cole’s hand falls down heavily on the release, the electromagnetic pulse exploding out through the ship and lighting up the whole cave they must have set down in while Ian was still inside the Matrix. The last of the standby lights in the cockpit die out as, one by one, the sentinels freeze in midair and then drop to the ground in heaps of unmoving metal tentacles. 

”It’s pretty bad,” Keros sums it up in one of his artful understatements, ”mainframe’s wiped and the engine’s pretty much bust, fixing those out here is a long shot at best. We’ve got the backup generators for life-support and maybe a jumpstart, but if we don’t got nothing to jumpstart, then…”

He leaves the sentence hanging, shrugging and looking at Lake across the table. They’ve gathered in the mess hall, the emergency lights glowing strong enough in there for them to passingly see what they’re doing.

”How the fuck did this happen,” Lake sighs and then turns her sharp focus on Ian, ”and what the fuck do you think you were doing, huh?”

Ian meets her eyes for a couple of seconds and then he shakes his head and shrugs helplessly. ”Don’t know.”

”You don’t know,” she repeats, unamused.

”Did what I had to do, Captain,” he says, hoping it will be enough. He knows he’s about to be discharged and he has no desire to air his personal business in the process, if he can avoid it. ”I’m sorry.”

She stares at him for a little while longer and then huffs out a dry laugh, shaking her head and looking away.

”No, you’re not,” she says, still far from amused and not at all wrong, ”consider your ass suspended, Red, the second we touch ground in Zion you’re gonna spend the next month shoveling shit in sanitation.”

”Yes, ma’am,” he agrees with a short nod, sitting back in his chair when Lake sighs and promptly moves on.

”Right,” she says and looks around the table, ”we’re abandoning ship.”

Ian frowns and he can sense Tang stiffening on her chair next to him.

”There’s a summit fourteen klicks west of here,” Lake continues, leaning forward and tapping her finger against the table for emphasis, ”Zion tried to hail us right before we went silent, our first priority is to get coms back up and the summit is our best option to make that happen. Slow walk, we could reach it in less than a day, get rescue out here to pick us up.”

”Permission to stay with the ship, Captain,” Tang interjects, surprising the whole table. She never argues or disagrees with anything, she keeps herself to herself. ”I can get her back in the air.”

Lake seems to consider it for a long while before she nods.

”Tang will remain,” she decides, ”Red will stay with her. The rest, we’ll leave in ten minutes. One blaster each, provisions, thermals, lights. Nothing else.”

Ian sees them off at the bridge, using the manual pump to close it back up behind them. He can hear Tang’s tinkering in the engine room echo through the empty ship, and walking past the dead monitors of the central console he tries to feel at least a little bit of shame when he wants them back online just so he can make sure Mickey’s still safe where he left him. 

It’s going to be a long couple of days.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S A BLOODY MATRIX FUSION AU *busts a move*


	8. Day 36500, year unknown

Day 36500, year unknown.

 

Straightening up and closing the generator back up, Ian screws the cover in place and turns to the monitor. The range is pretty short without the boost of the ship’s core but at least they’ve got a good view of a five klick radius, and other than the steadily pulsating dot of the Nightingale, smack in the middle of the screen, it’s all clear on all fronts. For now. Ian turns on the internal coms and listens to the speakers crack and whirr as they switch on all the way through the bridge and down the lower decks. It’s a little more power pulled from the backup generators, but the comfort of being able to hear the scan beep in warning in case of another sentinel attack is worth the hour or so of central heating he’s giving up to make it happen.

If they’re gonna die from cold when the power finally runs out, one hour more or less isn’t going to do much difference.

Turning off all the lights as he leaves the cockpit, Ian swings himself down the few steps to the bridge, his boots heavy and loud when he lands on the metal grid. The pale blue of the emergency lights his only guide, he climbs down to the mess more on memory and feel than anything else, and hits one of the small sensory lamps right by the dispenser to turn it on and leave the rest of the cramped room eerie and glum as he pumps out two portions of grub.

Tang is still deep inside the engine room when he gets there, following the steady sound of her tinkering and low muttering. He sits down with his legs dangling off the edge of the crawlspace under the floor leading to the central computer and gingerly placing the two bowls down next to him, he raps his knuckles against the rusty bulk of the engine.

”Dinner,” he announces and then frowns, ”lunch, or breakfast, maybe? Who the fuck knows.”

He kicks out a foot and absently tries to count their meals since the attack. Eight, maybe nine, maybe it’s been three days. The concept of time is a strange thing when there’s no sun to pin it on, day and night kinda become concepts only, attempts to structure time in a way that makes sense. With their systems offline and the mainframe down, it’s easy to lose perspective. But three days sounds about right, three meals a day and two shifts of sleep, three days since the rest of the crew left in pursuit of rescue, to find some way to contact Zion. About a day since they should have made it back already, if everything’d gone according to plan, finding the summit and hailing home.

”What’s that?” Tang asks and pops up next to his left knee, wiping dark grease on to her forehead and back into her hair when she looks at him curiously.

”Nothing,” Ian says and flashing a quick grin he picks up her bowl and holds it out for her to accept it, ”internal clock’s all screwed up.”

She takes the bowl and nods, stepping backwards and finding a large metal pipe to sit down on.

”Dinner,” she determines after giving it some thought, ”definitely dinner.”

”Alright,” Ian hums and picks up his own bowl, ”guess I’ll take your word for it.”

Absurd as it may sound, Ian thinks he’s gotten used to eating the same white goo for every meal. It’s a little sad, but he thinks the uniform diet has taken away some of his hunger, his interest in food. He hardly ever thinks about having a juicy steak anymore, or cheese, a nice pizza, some greasy takeout. It was driving him mad for a couple of weeks, but shipping out with the Nightingale for his second tour he already started getting used to it. Even in Zion there’s no culinary opulence to speak of and the only time that actually gets to him is when he thinks of Mickey’s kitchen, the whole room smelling like pancakes, of the wooden table and the four chairs around it, one with the booster seat and Yevgeny perched precariously on the edge, another with Mickey, knees wide apart and elbows on the table. One empty, and then the fourth one that’d become ’his’. Ian’s place at the table. How fucking wild is that? Coming into someone else’s home and waking up there one day to find out that there’s a chair with your name on it, invisible and powerful.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t already made sure that pancakes were possible to make, even in the dark depths of Zion. The ingredients were a little funky and alien, in that way that still makes him think of sci-fi movies, but the result of his preliminary tests had been surprisingly satisfactory. He’s not sure what he’s hoping for at this point, but he wants to be prepared for anything. So what if he’s infinitely more prepared for a sweet reunion than the prospect of being alone for the rest of his life, or moving on for that matter. He’s not prepared for that one at all.

”Scanner’s quiet,” he says, pulling in a quick breath and lifting his gaze from his porridge to look at Tang, ”the core’s up and running, too, just missing a signal at this point. How’s work in the basement?”

Tang shrugs and shovels in a large spoonful of goo, chewing it down a little before speaking around it. ”Everything’s pretty much golden, but the catalyst is still cracked. Whole thing’s for nothing without it. Can’t believe I let us ship out without a replacement.”

”Hey,” Ian tries, his spoon scraping through the last of his meal as he attempts something like a reassuring smile, ”we’ll figure it out.”

Tang nods but doesn’t look convinced, dipping her head and staring down into her bowl, pushing her food around.

”Do you think they’ve made it?” she asks, and it surprises Ian just because they’ve been doing a really good job so far not talking about it at all.

”Hope so,” he says with a small shrug, his face contracting with doubt when she looks up at him, ”been scanning the area since we got the generators working, there’s not been a single squid patrol passing by in three days, so chances are they’ve gotten to the summit just fine.”

”This depth is usually crawling with squiddies,” Tang mutters, probably more so to herself than because she thinks Ian doesn’t already know, ”it’s weird that they’ve been this quiet for this long.”

”Yeah,” Ian agrees with an uneasy frown, but then can’t help crack a smile when the quote pops up in his head, unsought, ”I’ve got a _bad_ feeling about this.”

They fall into a slightly awkward silence when Tang seems to both agree and be a little confused at the same time by Ian’s mismatched tone and words.

”When did you get unplugged?” he asks, the conversational question slipping out before he can think better of it. Maybe it’s a sensitive subject.

”It’s been fourteen years,” she says and hums around her spoon, slowly pulling it out from between her pursed lips and chewing thoughtfully on the porridge before she continues, ”1985.”

”Did you manage to see Star Wars before that?” he asks and raises an eyebrow in mock seriousness, but can’t help both smiling and faking a shocked gasp when her confused frown only deepens.

”What’s that?” she says and looks like she’s really trying to remember, ”a movie?”

”Yeah,” Ian huffs, ”a movie.”

”Probably not,” Tang admits and shrugs, ”there were some bootlegged stuff coming in from Hong Kong, sometimes we’d get to watch one if the matron was in a good mood, but I don’t really remember any one particular movie.”

”A long time ago,” Ian tries to jostle her memory, sweeping with his spoon through the air in a wide bow, ”in a galaxy far, far away.”

But nothing, she only scrunches up her nose and slowly starts shaking her head.

”Used to love those kinda movies,” Ian sighs, ”was looking forward to watching them again with Yev when he got old enough.”

Tang nods and says nothing, eyes back on her food. Whenever he tries to talk to other redpills about this stuff he always ends up feeling like a whiny shit, caring about all the wrong stuff when everyone around him seem focused on surviving, on winning an impossible war. Forget talking to anyone born free, they have no patience or understanding for any kind of bereavement or nostalgia when it comes to leaving the Matrix behind.

”Now I’m in one,” he sighs and can feel his lips quirk into a crooked smile when Tang looks at him, none of the judgement he’s come to expect from his peers in her eyes, ”just not in space, like in all those movies about the future. We didn’t end up going up, huh? We went down, back inside the cave.”

”You know the worst thing about this whole damned revolution,” Tang says earnestly, pointing at Ian with her spoon when he shakes his head, ”fresh redpills turning everything into a damned high school philosophy session, every chance they get.”

She grins when Ian barks out a laugh that quickly shifts into an embarrassed groan as he turns his eyes to the ceiling and shakes his head at himself.

”Fourteen years,” she reminds him and laughs when he closes his eyes, ”you all think what you’re thinking is new, and deep, but I’ve heard it all ten times over.”

”Yeah, I think I’m real deep,” Ian scoffs and dips his head back down to grin sheepishly at her, ”so fucking deep in denial about what’s going on, I’m sittin’ here thinking about how I’d rather watch a dumb movie about space for the hundredth time than be on this ship right now, fighting this fight.”

”So maybe you’re not deep,” Tang shrugs, ”but you’re not stupid either.”

Ian leaves his genuine argument to the contrary unspoken, setting down his empty bowl on the floor next to him and looking down his legs and heavy boots, into the complicated grid of metal pipes and wires below. He’s starting to feel like he can tell Tang anything, like she really won’t judge him or think he’s some kinda risk to the cause just because he’s consumed with regret. He’s not a traitor, not for anything, no matter how much he wants to go back and have his decision unmade. He thinks she knows this about him, just from being around him for a couple of months. He thinks she probably made up her mind about him right off the bat, and even though they’re very different people, they’ve found something easy and fundamental in each other that just makes sense. Aside from his family and Mandy, Ian never was very successful at making friends in the real world, getting beyond the surface pleasantries of acquaintances and coworkers to some kind of deeper understanding, without being derailed by sex along the way.

Before Mickey, there’d been so many guys he’d really just wanted to be friends with but again and again ended up fucking, thinking it’d be an easy shortcut to some kind of intimacy. He’s pretty sure he’d ruined the meaning of that word until Mickey stood in his kitchen and told him he loved him for the first time. Not because he wanted to get something from Ian, not to have him owe him anything or feel pressured to do something he didn’t want to do. Just ’cause he felt it, ’cause they were both right there and ready to confess how important their connection had become. 

He misses Mickey, so much he kinda forgets how to breathe if he lets himself think about it for too long.

”I miss movies,” he says instead and thinks he sounds like a fucking robot, saying it, ”not to shit on you guys’ little cave-orgies or anything but they’re like, nothin’ compared to watching Star Wars for the first time.”

Tang snorts and has to clasp her hand over her mouth to keep her food from spraying everywhere.

”They’re not orgies, come on,” she huffs and swallows, ”it’s just dancing.”

Ian picks up his eyebrows and levels her with an unimpressed stare.

”Sure,” he says, ”used to be a club kid, think I know an orgy when I’m in one and believe me when I tell you these ’temple gatherings’ you got going down there are just short sermons followed by a bunch of happy endings.”

”It’s carnal, it’s human,” Tang tries to explain it, even though she really doesn’t have to, ”but what do I know, I haven’t been to one in years.”

Ian remembers this one time when he was still a kid, maybe ten or eleven, and Fiona had taken him and their other siblings to a local church. It was Sunday and winter and they hadn’t seen their parents for a couple of days, the fridge was completely empty at home and there’d been a flyer outside the Kash and Grab telling them that December’s sermons at St Mary’s came with a hot meal for anyone in need. Inside the church had been pretty cold, but still better than outside or even their own home after the heating had been cut off, and the stew they got after was good enough to turn anyone into a believer, albeit temporarily.

Ian had listened to the priest pontificating his sermon, voice echoing through the large room and words kinda accusing him of things he didn’t even know he was guilty of yet. And eating their food afterwards had felt like an agreement, like he signed himself up for compliance, like he suddenly owed this old, shouty guy in a dress to change, and serve. Carl and Debbie had been too young, and Fiona hadn’t been paying attention to the guy at all. Lip had listened, same as Ian, but he hadn’t seemed inclined to feel any of Ian’s guilt or reluctant obligation.

The first time Ian attended one of Zion’s temple gatherings, he’d felt just like he had at ten years old, being told he was sinful just for being alive, for thinking unclean things that only got worse because they happened to be about other boys. There is a tight-knit community in Zion, everyone stepping up and working tirelessly towards the same goal, it’s impressive and overpowering and most of Ian’s peers seem to settle into it without trouble. Ian, with his heart stuck inside the Matrix, has a hard time listening to the council stand up on that stage and loudly orate about the war without silently questioning both motive and measure. And when the drums start pounding afterwards, it only adds to his discomfort and drives him back to the meager comforts of his bunk, to ignore the vibrations though his floor and stare at his ceiling, trying to calm his thoughts and fall asleep.

”Not your thing?” he asks, voice quiet and probably a little too hopeful.

Tang sets down her bowl on the floor by her feet, not looking directly at Ian when she straightens back up and shrugs.

”I love this ship,” she says instead of answering the question, ”I understand this ship… but people, not so much.”

Ian feels his brow furrow in concentration, keeping quiet so Tang can take her time to say whatever it is she wants to share with him.

”When the machines first created the Matrix,” she recites, and Ian’s heard the lore many times before, he’s just not sure he believes it, ”there was a man born inside, it was he who unplugged the first of us. He started the revolution, he raised Zion from the rubble.”

”The One,” Ian agrees, but can’t help making a slight face when he does, ”Neo. Do you believe it’s really him? That he’s some kinda savior and that he’s come back to end the war?”

Tang shrugs and gives him an uncertain smile.

”Doesn’t really matter what I believe,” she says, ”what I _know_ is that if I’d been set free a hundred years ago, at the beginning, it wouldn’t have been so easy for me to skip temple and care more about this ship than about building relationships, about making babies.”

Ian averts his eyes and feels like something cold is crawling up his spine. He’s thought about this a lot, but it’s always been from his own perspective, from his own nature and preferences. People might think he’s stubborn and idiotic for not seeking out new sexual relationships here, in the _real world_ , but no one’s gonna be mad at him or expect him to surrender his body to something he doesn’t want. It’s hard to imagine a healthy society that’s accepting of all kinds of people, when it’s been pressured to grow and multiply as fast and as much as humanly possible, over such a short period of time. Equality between the genders is all well and fine in theory, but how much is it going to be worth when there’s war on the horizon and the ranks need to be multiplied. 

”Yet again I’m in the minority,” Tang says and rolls her eyes, but smiles like she finds it kinda funny, like it’s all she can do at the end of the day, ”most people find temple… comforting. They want to feel human, they want to feel connected to their own bodies and to other people, I guess. Does it comfort you?”

Ian raises a shoulder in an uneven shrug. ”Last time I went to temple I had like two dudes and three chicks tryna grind on me and tellin’ them I’m not available just… don’t know. Don’t think they take it seriously, like they’re just waiting for me to forget him and move on. Realize that oh! It wasn’t real, just ’cause it happened inside the Matrix, and if I just got that through my head, I’d get over it.”

”You don’t think you’ll ever move on?” she asks, but she doesn’t sound like she thinks he’s some silly kid for feeling like might not. ”In another fourteen years, he’s in there and you’re out here, you won’t try to find happiness with someone else?”

 _No._ Ian knows he’ll try, he’s never been good at being alone, but he’s not sure he’ll be very successful doing it.

”I don’t think we have another fourteen years,” he says and glances up at her for a moment to see how she reacts to his prediction, but her face is locked in its usual blank, vague scowl, ”I think they’re gearing up for war, Zion, the machines, and it’s coming. Soon. And we’re the ones going to die.”

He bows his head and shakes it, slowly, closing his eyes. He’s never said any of this out loud, but with every day passing he feels like it’s closing in on them, steady and unrelenting.

”I’m not,” he starts and stops to clear his throat over the building lump, ”I’m not gonna spend what little time I’ve got left, tryna replace someone I…”

He sucks in a sharp breath and leaves the rest unsaid, blinking up at the engine room’s glum ceiling.

”Maybe we win,” Tang offers, and the casual optimism sounds a little strange coming from her. It’s almost enough to be comforting.

”Yeah, maybe,” he chuckles bitterly and sniffs, wiping with he back of his hand under his nose, cold and a little wet, ”but what does that mean? What does winning mean? We get to be free, all of us?”

He throws out his hands in a helpless shrug when she doesn’t answer. 

”Everyone still plugged into the Matrix?” he goes on, voice climbing in pitch as he voices this crippling fear that’s been building inside him since he was first unplugged. ”We’re all going to be free, sure, great. But where? They scorched the fucking sky, the sun is gone! We have _one_ good city, _a cave_ , already full of people. Quarter of a million people, and another five _billion_ plugged into the machines’ power plant, where will they go?”

”Would you want them free?” Tang asks and her frown deepens when he shakes his head and shrugs.

”Doesn’t matter what I want,” he says, ”it’s not my choice to make, especially not since they’re probably happier staying in there, and safer too unless we fuck it up for ’em out here. I understand fighting for Zion, I really fucking do, but…”

He feels his mouth open and close around the rest of that sentence, not sure if he should finish it even though they’re the only two people around for miles on this depth.

”But at what cost,” Tang eventually fills in on her own, nodding absently and staring down at her empty bowl on the floor.

”Sorry I-,” Ian sighs and scrubs a hand down his face, smiling a little at his friend when he lets it drop, ”there’s a reason why people don’t talk about this shit, it’s not very helpful, is it? Just confusing and making things difficult when they shouldn’t be. We’re fighting against murderous machines for christ’s sake, what’s wrong with me? Give me your bowl.”

Tang bends over and picks up her bowl, standing up and walking over to Ian to set it down on top of his. Folding her arms over the edge of the floor she leans her chin on her hand and looks up at Ian, tilting her head to the side.

”But who made them murderous?” she asks and gives him a quick grin when he groans at the prospect of another moral dilemma. ”Questions are never bad, Ian, only difficult and sometimes a little… inopportune.”

”You sayin’ this isn’t the right time to start questioning this shit?” he tries to joke and sighs when she only offers up an innocent shrug.

”This isn’t the right time for _anything_ ,” she says and carefully puts a cold hand over his where it’s gripping the edge of the floor, ”but that doesn’t mean you should give him up.”

Ian stares at her and really wishes he knew what to say, but his mouth is dry and his mind is a blank, and he feels a little less useless for only caring about _him_ , about _them_ , when so much else is at stake.

”I’ll go wash up,” he eventually whispers, quirking a small smile when she gently squeezes his hand, ”think I saw some more boxes in the mess hall too, behind the dispenser. Maybe I can find you something useful there.”

She nods and lets go of him, and grabbing on to one of the pipes she swings herself down to the next level and disappears in under the engine again.

He takes their bowls back to the mess and gives them a quick rinse, putting them back in the cupboard before he crouches down to pull a couple of heavy boxes out from under the sink, and some more from behind the nutrient dispenser. He’s spent the last two days going through their entire inventory, trying to find spare parts for Tang to use to fix up the ship. He’s okay with maintenance but pretty useless when it comes to down to actual engineering. He’s better with computers, which is why they’ve got their internal system up and running already, just waiting for the ship’s mainframe to kick back in and connect all the dots. They’re one bust, but essential, piece away from being able to communicate with Zion again, and getting back up in the air.

”Hey!” he shouts down the dark corridor in the direction of the engine room, even though he knows Tang most likely can’t hear him. ”Think I found something!”

He picks up the whole box, resting it on his thigh for a second so he can adjust his grip and carefully carry it down the steep steps without falling and breaking a limb, or worse, breaking their last hope.

”Oh fuck,” he mutters and almost kinda wishes he’d listened to that fucking priest when he was ten, so he’d have something to pray to now, ”let it be something.”

He sets down the box and knocks loudly on the engine, the sound echoing through the whole ship.

Tang is an even bigger mess when she reappears, and she doesn’t stop for pleasantries or to discuss moral dilemmas this time, eyes locking on to the box and not leaving it for a second as she heaves herself out of the hole to kneel down next to it.

”Gorgeous,” she mumbles and holds up a spare part that looks about ten years old, covered in grease and dust, ”I could kiss you.”

”Please don’t,” Ian says and smiles when she snaps her head up to look at him.

”Wasn’t talking to you,” she admits with a wide grin, ”but I guess you deserve some credit. This might just work.”

He’s too wired to sit down, so he stands by his box and listens to Tang working, muttering steadily under her breath and only becoming slightly coherent when something goes wrong, or occasionally right, and she coaxes the engine like she’s trying to encourage it back to life with kind words.

She stops speaking English after ten minutes and after a couple of sharp exclamations in presumably Mandarin, the lights suddenly flicker and flood the bridge in fluorescent white as the engine slowly spins into action.

”You did it,” Ian breathes out and doesn’t wait for her to reappear before he’s climbing up to the central console, eyes roaming the screens as they react to the sudden reconnection, and the green code slowly starts to fall in front of his eyes again for the first time in days.

But something is wrong, it’s garbled and warped and looking at the Matrix he sees none of the usual overwhelming multitude of code and life, it’s just the same strand over and over again.

He decides to ignore the Matrix for a second, the code is probably messed up because of the weak signal, and instead tries to pick up on the long-range coms and reach out to Zion.

”How does it look?” Tang asks, coming up behind him and not waiting for an answer when she leans over his shoulder and squints at the strange coding. ”What the..?”

”Don’t know,” Ian mutters through clenched teeth, if something’s happened to them while he’s been offline then-, fuck, _don’t think about it, don’t think about it_ , ”and no answer from Zion but-, no, here’s something…”

He boosts their signal as far as he can and searches every known frequency until he finds one that’s active, patching it through to the speakers. It stutters with static and sharp, wordless noise for a few minutes until suddenly a distressed voice starts coming through.

” _-under attack!_ ”

Ian turns sharply to look at Tang, who sinks down in her chair, eyes steadily on the monitor still struggling to stabilize the signal.

”Zion?” he says and wracks his brain for something to do other than sitting still at a safe distance and listening to people they know and care about being slaughtered by a far superior enemy.

 _”-attack, I repeat,_ ” the voice zones back in and fills the room, _”we are no longer under attack, they’re-, -ing, just circling the air, like they’re waiting for something. We-, -elieve it, we should all be dead. I repeat, the machines have stopped the attack, oh God, hey! Hey! Medic! Over he-, -re they doing?”_

Ian frowns and turns back to Tang when she pulls herself closer to the desk and clutching a headset to her ear opens up all the channels.

”This is Acting Captain Tang with the Nightingale, calling Zion and all ships, what’s your status?” she tries, but there’s nothing but a soft whirr in response. ”Zion, this is the Nightingale, do you copy? What’s happening?”

Ian can’t help it, he has to do something, he brings the Matrix back up on three of their screens and tries to understand what it’s telling him, pulling his keyboard closer he attempts to decrypt the code only to feel like he’s staring himself blind at a foreign language he can’t even begin to comprehend.

”It almost looks like a virus,” he mutters and zooms in on a concentration of activity isolated on one of the screens. ”Look. There’s the city, but where are the people? There’s just like-, this one thing there instead, again and again. It makes no sense.”

”They all look the same,” Tang says but doesn’t sound like she understands what she means by that any more than he does, ”Zion, come in Zion. What is happening with the Matrix?”

Suddenly the code kinda explodes on the screens, going haywire and running faster than Ian’s ever seen it before. He rolls back a little and holds up his hands, eyes wide as he tries to take in the onslaught of information scrolling down in front of him and blinking when it all dies out in an instant, only leaving the base, immobile structural code to slowly tick away.

”What the fuck?” he breathes out, heart pounding in his chest.

 _”Zion, it’s over!”_ a new voice fills the room, crackling and breaking, but ecstatic, _”-over! The war is over! He did it! He saved us! Neo did it!”_

Tang stands up so quickly her chair falls back on the floor, the clattering loud in the large room.

”What does that mean?” Ian whispers to himself, a distant thought telling him he should rejoice but a cold hand gripping around his heart, reminding him of what he’s still got left to lose.

Silently he taps his keyboard a couple of times, words failing him completely when the schematics of the machines’ power plant spread out over the screens and they watch the billions of little lights, signaling every single pod holding every last person connected to the Matrix, as one by one they go out and gradually get replaced by angry red dots and flashing warnings.

”They’re waking up,” Tang says behind him, panic evident in her voice, ”all of them, they’re all waking up!”

”Fuck,” Ian mutters and desperately tries to think of something to do, of what they possibly could do to help billions of people waking up at the same time to find out that they’ve lived their whole lives in a synthetic womb, connected to a virtual reality to which they might never be able to return. He thinks of that moment of horror he felt, waking up and thinking he was stuck in some insanely vivid nightmare, pulling the feeder out of his throat and looking out over the vast cityscapes of towers, glancing carefully over the sides and up just to see them disappear into smog at both ends, like they didn’t have either beginning or end. 

He closes his eyes and tries to imagine how it would be like to go through that as a kid, and all his pain and desperation suddenly narrows down to one thing that he knows for sure he can do.

”5934 221056,” he mumbles and opens his eyes, typing in the memorized serial number and watching with bated breath as the monitor zones in on one of the towers, and then closer until only the schematics of one specific pod is in full view, ”get me there, now.”

Tang doesn’t need convincing. She’s running up the bridge before he’s even finished speaking. He locks in on the coordinates and sends them to the navigational system, and then he leaves the controls to run after Tang, taking the steps two at a time and bursting into the cockpit the same moment they’re taking off.

”Feels steady,” Tang mumbles to herself and grabs on tighter to the controls, nodding towards a switch on Ian’s side when he sits down in the co-pilot’s chair, ”stabilize.”

Ian flips the switch and grabs on to his armrests when the ship lurches into motion and Tang picks up speed at an alarming rate, the dark sewers a blur after just a couple of seconds in the air.

”They might kill us,” she says calmly, and it doesn’t sound like an objection.

”Then they’ll have to fucking kill us,” Ian agrees and sits back in his chair when Tang does a sudden upwards turn and they burst through the ground and up into the dark, inhospitable air of the surface level.

”Two minutes,” she announces, like they’re not barreling towards enemy territory but out for a leisurely trip, ”I’ve got a lock, no sentinels in sight so far.”

Ian nods and leaves the cockpit to climb up into the top chamber situated just above the deck. He thinks about grabbing one of the heavy duty jackets hanging on the hooks lining the whole room, but then he thinks better of it. If he gets wet, it’s just gonna slow him down. He pulls out the security line and hooks it to the strap around his hips, built into his pants, and then he climbs the stepladder and pauses with his hand on the crank, ready to open up the top hatch the second they arrive.

 _”Now!”_ Tang tells him over the intercoms, her voice coming through louder than he expected and jostling him into action. He pulls the lever and climbs out into the whipping air outside, pushing the hatch up with him and down the side as he heaves himself over the edge and tries to find some purchase on the uneven exterior of the ship. They’re smack in the middle of the power plant’s massive towers and it’s the first time he sees them up close and for real since he was unplugged. If he hadn’t had more important things on his mind, he thinks he would have been struck dumb with awe in the presence of the towering structures, of the overwhelming scope and extent of the cruel reality presented with the naked bodies stretched out in rows of faintly glowing, red pods. It was different last time he was here, it was still, and quiet, the only thing moving had been the machines floating around and making sure everything was in order, disconnecting expired bodies and connecting new ones. It’s not quiet now, or still, it takes a second for his brain to understand the sound but when it does it fills him with dread.

Wordless screams carried on the wind, from countless people awakening to a new world.

He looks down at the pod directly below him, down the side of the hovercraft and maybe a couple of feet away, and it’s almost like he forgets that he’s no longer inside the Matrix and able to do amazing, impossible things, when he lets go of the ship and starts sliding down the rounded, steep slope of the hull. But Yevgeny’s pod is still closed, and Ian can see his slight body nestled inside the membrane, and he’s not moving. So Ian doesn’t stop to think, he just lets go and slides, and is about to tumble off the ship completely when his foot suddenly catches on an uneven bit of metal, sticking out the side. He balances on it for a split second and then he takes the leap, throwing himself on to the pod in front of him and clinging to the smooth sides of it, staring down at Yevgeny’s muddled, peaceful face.

”No, no no,” Ian chants and scrambles closer digging his hands into the membrane in an effort to break through. He does, his whole weight on top of it causing it to give in and he tumbles helplessly into the pod, trying not to crush Yevgeny as the amniotic fluid floods over the sides with his added mass.

Trying to find some purchase on the slippery bottom of the pod he spreads his knees wide on either side of Yevgeny and quickly, carefully, bends down to scoop him up in his arms, holding him upright as he grabs at the feeder still attached to the child’s unresponsive face and steadily pulls it out.

Tossing it over the side he can hear it bang against the outer shell of the pod as he tries to jostle Yevgeny awake, putting a hand to his chest to check his heart. It’s still beating.

”Come on, Yevy, please,” he begs in a whisper and slips a little as he maneuvers himself in behind Yevgeny’s limp body, trying not to catch the main lead still screwed into the kid’s headjack when he clasps his arms around his chest and attempts to give him some kind of awkward Heimlich maneuver. Whatever it is, it works, and coughing up a mouthful of the slimy liquid Yevgeny suddenly jolts in his arms and starts to shake violently.

”I’m here,” Ian cries softly into his ear and hugs the kid to himself tightly until he feels him starting to calm down, ”it’s okay, Yevy, everything’s gonna be fine, I’m here, I got you, I got you.”

He’s still chipping for breath, but when Ian holds him closer and leans over his trembling shoulder, fitting their cheeks together and taking deep, measured breaths, he can feel Yevgeny slowly surrendering to his rhythm, their chests rising and falling together.

”Just breathe,” Ian mumbles into his cold skin and takes a second to close his eyes and thank whatever benevolent power there might still be out there that he somehow managed to get here before it was too late.

A loud sob pulls him out of his thoughts and snapping his head to the side he sees the open pod next to Yevgeny’s, only about six feet away to their left. A woman, bald and naked like everybody else in the plant, is slumped over the edge, arms barely working as she seems to try and reach out for them, mouth moving around with no sound coming out.

”Fuck,” Ian mutters and tries to blink some of the tears and amniotic fluid out of his eyes when he sees a maintenance unit closing in, meticulously working down the row and unscrewing people one by one from their bonds, some flailing and struggling in its grip, some not moving at all. It’s a wholly unpleasant experience, but it needs to be done. Yevgeny and everybody else hooked up to the power plant all have their wires still plugged in to their arms and legs, chest and spine, and the main line directly into their brains through the jack in the back of their heads. It’s not designed to be easily removed, Ian wouldn’t even know where to begin if he were to try it himself.

”Lady,” he shouts, getting the woman’s attention, ”stay calm, let the thing unplug you and then hold on, okay? Just hold on!”

Her face contorts into a kind of primal, silent cry, but he thinks he can see her nod. He looks away from her when the machine reaches her pod.

”Listen, Yevy,” he says and tries to keep his voice level, calm, ”everything’s gonna be fine, you’ll be out of here in a couple of minutes, alright? Everything’s gonna be fine, just relax. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

He feels like a liar when the Nightingale suddenly dips out of the way and one of the horrific medical bots flows into view, probes and scans flashing and sticking out at Yevgeny’s face, his whole body stiffening with fear in Ian’s arms.

”I’m sorry,” Ian says and tries to hold on as well as he can when the machine lashes out and grabs its clamps around Yevgeny’s neck, holding him up so it can unscrew his main lead. ”It’s okay, try to relax! I got you.”

It’s over within seconds, Yevgeny slumping back against Ian and the machine moving on to the next pod, which remains silent and unmoving when Ian glances that way.

”You’re doing so good,” he tells Yevgeny and holds him close as the rest of the wires follow suit and start snapping off his body, one by one, starting by his feet and ending with the long row going up his spine. Ian feels every single one of them as they shake Yevgeny’s body and whip against Ian’s chest when they release. ”You’re so brave, Yevy, just a little more and we’re done.”

The second the last wire snaps off, Ian’s on his knees, trying to maneuver them both to the foot of the pod and closer to the ship, carefully hovering back towards them again. Now he just needs to get them back inside somehow, sticky and slippery and with Yevgeny’s body weak and unresponsive. Ian couldn’t move for two days after he was unplugged, and not until after they’d done some extensive work in medical, rebuilding all his muscle tissue.

He carefully releases his grip on the kid and turns him around in his arms until he’s looking into Yevgeny’s scared, wide-eyed face. His dark hair and eyebrows gone it’s almost impossible to recognize him. But those blue eyes, he’d know them anywhere. Ian smiles and does his best to wipe some of the worst goo off his face, hoping the gentle touch is a little comforting.

”You gonna need to help me,” he says, leaning closer and pressing a light kiss to Yevgeny’s cold cheek when he thinks he sees a spark of recognition in his scared eyes, ”I can’t do this without you, kiddo, you need to hold on.”

Yevgeny blinks and nods, or maybe he’s just shaking so violently it looks like he’s understanding what Ian’s telling him. Either way, the tower is about to get flushed any second now, so they have to keep moving, quickly. Ian carefully transfers Yevgeny around until he’s hanging down his back, his skinny arms locked around his neck.

”Right there,” he instructs and tries to hold Yevgeny’s arms in place, make sure he won’t slip, ”don’t let go, okay?”

But it’s like his arms won’t listen, as soon as Ian lets go of them and starts moving forward, he can feel Yevgeny slipping down his back, his arms not able to hold on around his neck.

”Shit,” Ian mutters and glances up at the ship like it’s fucking Everest, suddenly the short climb seems impossible. But then the whole ship dips down and hovers in under the pod, the hull scraping against the underside of it, it’s so close. Tang must have seen him struggle and he spares a thankful thought in the direction of her precision flying as he grabs on to Yevgeny’s slack arms again and with one free hand carefully climbs up on the pod and steps over to the top of the Nightingale.

Limbs shaking with nerves and tension, he climbs down the hatch and gently sets Yevgeny down on a bench, leaning him back against the cold, safe iron walls of the ship. Grabbing a thermal blanket from under the bench he wraps it tightly around the kid’s naked, trembling body, and holding him close for a second he hates himself for what he’s about to do.

”Tang!” he calls out, leaning back a little so he’s not shouting Yevgeny in the face. ”Back up about six feet, keep her steady.”

 _”Aye aye, sir!”_ Tang’s voice comes through the speaker system.

Ian gently grabs hold of Yevgeny’s face and locks their eyes, smiling in what he hopes to be a comforting way when Yevgeny peers up at him and seems aware enough to follow his movements.

”I’ll come back,” he whispers and touches his forehead to Yevgeny’s for a second, ”I promise.”

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, editing has suffered at the hands of my poor time management skills. I'll probably get the hang of this by chapter 12, and finally manage to not end up editing until four in the morning, it's the dream.
> 
> Sorry about this fic, dudes! Hope it's making sense, you guys are lovely <3


	9. Day 2, year unknown

Day 2, year unknown

 

Ian blinks awake, the darkness of his bunk not much of a difference from the insides of his eyelids. He closes his eyes again and inhales a lungful of air, holds on to it, and then slowly lets it out through his nostrils. There’s something new in the air, besides the stale metallic cold of the rusty hovercraft, something young and familiar. Something lost. Ian snaps his eyes open when he feels his warm breath bounce off something and flow back in his face, and he tentatively moves his arm when he slowly realizes that it’s hugging around something, _someone_.

It’s only for a few seconds, but in the uncertain space between asleep and awake he’d somehow managed to forget what happened. That the Matrix had crashed, that everyone had woken up, that he’d pulled Yevgeny out of the kid’s pod with his own bare hands. That he had Yevgeny back, that he was asleep in his arms, still under from the sedative they’d given him while they treated his muscle atrophy.

He stares at the side of Yevgeny’s face until his eyes adjust and the kid’s calm profile finally starts taking shape against the dark grays and browns of the ship. Three months of sci-fi level, mind-bending horrors and this is what stumps him, this is what he’s having a hard time wrapping his head around.

Yevgeny is here, he’s safe. Ian knows he’s made a lot of stupid decisions lately, but if this is what they all amounted to in the end then he has no choice but to feel like it all somehow has been worth it. So many people died from shock or asphyxiation when they were unplugged, they’re still sorting through the bodies, he tries not to think about what would have happened to Yevgeny if he hadn’t been there.

Letting out a measured sigh, Ian pulls himself closer to Yevgeny’s body, small and heavy with sleep, and closes his eyes as he touches his lips to Yevgeny’s temple, breathing him in and gently holding on to his face, thumb caressing his cheek until his skin feels less cold to the touch. It was the worst part about waking up, Ian remembers, the cold. It still kinda is, disregarding the loneliness and heartbreak and impending doom, the cold is still the most basic, relentlessly unpleasant part of existing in the real world.

He doesn’t want Yevgeny to be cold, once the sedative wears off and he wakes up again.

Sitting up he swings his legs over the edge of the narrow bunk and looks down at Yevgeny, not even stirring when the mattress moves under Ian’s weight. Unable to stop himself, Ian reaches out again to carefully touch his hand to the kid’s cheek, covering the side of his face and up over his bald head. Getting up he digs through his drawers until he finds one of his threadbare beanies and a couple of unused heat packs. He sits back down on the bed and carefully lifts up Yevgeny’s heavy head so he can cover it with the slightly too big hat, pulling it down over his ears and then gently laying him back down on the pillow. He cracks the heat packs to activate them and tucks one in by the kid’s feet, another near his chest and a third by his shoulders, pulling the thermal blanket all the way up to his chin and tucking him back in, making sure the IV sticking out of his left arm is still secure and not tangled up or under pressure.

It’s hard to leave him, but Ian knows he won’t wake up for a good while yet and after finally getting a few hours’ sleep, after almost two days on his feet, Ian’s empty stomach is suddenly making itself known. He needs to check in on Tang anyway, she’s bound to have been on the coms with Zion since he left her to it. Maybe there’s news.

The ship is warmer than it’s been in days, with the engine back up and running and the threat of death upon detection gone, and the lights are on all the way down to the infirmary. Tang isn’t down there, the medical bots working away on their own and the machines beeping softly as a constant reassurance that nothing has changed. He walks past the monitors and along the incubator, watching as the long needles shake and wave together with every quick muscle contraction.

It’s been two days since the war ended. Around five billion people had woken up within one minute, and it’s estimated that about twenty-five percent died within the following five minutes. If Zion hadn’t been on the brink of destruction once already _that day_ , Ian’s pretty sure it would have been the trigger for another war. Rightfully fucking so, sure, but what good would it have done? In the end, the machines had agreed to let their batteries go and let them go they did, they just didn’t take into consideration that some were too young and some too old, and with no prep or choice - waking up in a strange, horrific wasteland was the last thing some of them would ever know.

It was a nightmare. The screaming stopped once the towers had flushed, but it wasn’t any easier the second time Ian climbed out on the hull of the Nightingale and _somehow_ managed to get Yevgeny’s neighbor lady inside the ship, too. She’d listened to him when he told her to ’hold on’ and it’d almost been impossible to get her to let go of her pod, she’d locked her arms around the edge of it so hard to keep from being flushed out the drain. With no record and the Matrix still down, they’ve got no other choice than to treat her as a Jane Doe until she wakes up. If she wakes up.

She’s still in treatment, spread out in the incubator before him, she’s still unstable.

Ian watches her face for a while, trying to tell if she’s in pain, if she’s dreaming. She was talking when Ian pulled her inside the ship, but not in any language he recognized. She’d fallen to her knees next to Yevgeny and held him to her, sobbing, until Ian pried the still shellshocked kid from her arms to carry him down to the infirmary.

Ian wonders where Mickey is, if the machines have him. He doesn’t wonder if he’s alright, he _has_ to be alright. There’s no acceptable scenario where Mickey isn’t alright.

Ian wonders about his family, if they’re alright. 

Sighing he scrubs a hand down his face and takes another look at the lady’s vitals, they’ve got her up to 60% but her progress has been slowing down drastically since yesterday. Tang’s been on extraction missions for over a decade and Ian’s been assisting under the Nightingale’s medical staff for a couple of months at this point, but the truth of the situation is still that neither of them are the best people to properly care for someone under the circumstances they are now. Since the Matrix crashed, there have been a few ships breaching the surface to aid in the nothing short of humanitarian crisis that’s unfolded in the aftermath, but Zion hardly even has the resources to take care of its own people let alone billions of refugees, all in need of dire medical attention.

But the machines have resources, and like it or not they know their way around human anatomy. Even as Tang set their ship down on the surface, just outside the power plant, they could see the machines swarming the skies over the recycling tanks, picking out survivors and already setting up to start the massive undertaking of bringing their withered bodies back to life. The machines are harsh and cold, there’s nothing pleasant or appealing about their countenance. They’re the stuff of scary stories and nightmares. They have understandably made themselves the complete opposite of their original design to pleasure and serve humans. 

But once again human kind find themselves reliant on the machines for their very survival, only this time the machines seem to offer their help willingly.

It’s not been made entirely clear why, yet. The scuttlebutt says it’s to do with Neo, but who knows. Ian isn’t sure he cares as long as people stop dying.

Leaving the infirmary and his somber thoughts behind, Ian follows his growling stomach to the mess.

”Hey Red,” Tang greets him when he steps inside, ducking his head so he won’t bang it on the top of the door. He gives her a quick, tightlipped smile as greeting and gets himself a nice bowl of goop before he joins her at the table.

”News?” he asks, sitting down and immediately digging in. She sighs and looks up from her notes and maps.

”Well,” she says, setting aside her empty bowl to turn one of the maps around and point to one section of it, ”finally got Cap on the line, they’re fine, says they found shelter here… see? Says they found the Evergreen there, she won’t fly but at least they’ve got heat and food for a few days.

”That’s great,” Ian lets out a relieved breath and tries not to think of how little he has worried about the missing members of their crew over the last few days, ”can we pick them up on our way to Zion?”

”About that,” Tang winces, taking back her map and looking for a second like she doesn’t want to meet Ian’s eyes, before she does, ”Zion wants us here.”

Ian stops with his spoon midair, vaguely aware of the goop sliding off it and the bowl clattering when he lowers his hand again.

”What does that mean?” he asks with a frown, even though there aren’t a whole lot of ways to interpret their new command.

”Means what it means, Red,” Tang shrugs, looking a little helpless and very exhausted as she pulls her fingers through her hair until they catch on the bun, ”Councillor Hamann went as far as calling me a bloody ambassador, I know it’s just bullshit but what am I supposed to say? We need some way to communicate with Zero One and so far the machines seem to accept me as some kind of representative. This is a critical moment.”

Ian rubs a hand over his eyes, pinching at the bridge of his nose before he pulls the hand down to rest his chin on it.

”Can’t stay here,” he almost whispers and she looks at him like he’s breaking her heart, ”he’s five, Tang. He’s just a kid. I need to bring him to Zion, I need him safe, and warm, I need to find Mickey. I can’t do that here.”

”I know,” Tang nods, ”I know, I’ll try and talk to them.”

Ian closes his eyes and shakes his head, just thinking about it makes him wanna break something, or go back to sleep for a couple of days. Talking to the council is like shouting at a storm. He needs to get to Zion before they find their bearings enough to classify the newly released people as refugees, before Zion is inevitably declared a closed city.

Yevgeny is _not_ ending up on some list of unaccompanied minors and taken away from him, like he’s afraid might happen if he tries to plead his case to the council for permission to return home, only to be denied and at the same time attract attention to their two new unregistered crew members. Yevgeny is staying with Ian, with his goddamned family.

He bows his head at the instinctual thought, unsure if he’s even allowed to think that way. Maybe there had been a time when he was well on his way to becoming Yevgeny’s family, but he blew it. Still, some things just don’t change. Not for Ian, anyway.

”We’ll find a way,” Tang says, ”even if they want _me_ here with the Nightingale, there’s no stopping _you_ from going home, right? I know a couple of the captains who’re volunteering to ship out as soon as repairs are done, they’re supposed to be here tomorrow. I’m sure we can find someone willing to bring the two of you back home under the radar.”

Ian nods, shoulders slumping when he tries to release some of the tension that’s been building there for days. ”What about you?”

”If I’m useful here,” she shrugs, locking their eyes like she wants to make sure he knows that she means it, ”then I’ll stay here.”

Ian nods again and looks down at what’s left of his nutrients. He’s always had a hard time admitting he needed anyone; medical support, concerned boyfriends, his neglectful parents, even his siblings. He never wanted to be a burden to anyone and somewhere along the way he became convinced that he needed to shoulder all of his issues on his own. Lately it’s become easier to admit that he _does_ need people, maybe not to stay sane or to survive, in the strictest sense of the word, but to be happy, to _want_ to survive.

It’s not a secret that this emotional growth spurt has everything to do with Mickey. But whatever the cause, if Ian never has to say goodbye to another friend or loved one again for the rest of his life, then that’d be fucking awesome.

”Did you check on Jane?” Tang asks, giving him a small and knowing smile when he looks up and nods. ”Good?”

”She’s past critical,” Ian reports, clearing his throat over his thickened, raspy voice, ”though progress is slowing down.”

”As we suspected,” Tang reminds him, looking over her papers while she speaks, ”aged her to about fifty-five, well above what we usually have to work with. I analyzed her genetics-”

”’Course you did,” Ian interrupts her with a quick grin.

”Of course,” she shrugs and unearths her tablet from under one of the maps, tapping it just to bring up _another_ map, ”and I narrowed her origin down to eastern Africa, most likely and specifically the Horn of Africa, and then-”

She taps the tablet again and brings up one of her charmless pieces of homemade software. Tang is a brilliant engineer but she’s not any sort of visual designer, every single program she makes kinda tend to end up looking the same, and like she’s stuck in the eighties. Tapping the screen a couple of times, she’s raising the volume and pressing play for a short audio recording. It’s no more than five seconds long but it’s enough to invoke a clear memory of two days ago, Ian’s legs folding under him as he helps their new passenger down on the floor, both still dripping with amniotic fluid and shivering with cold. She’s talking but he still can’t understand her, and then she’s crying.

”You made a recording?” Ian frowns but can’t help smiling again when Tang looks like it makes perfect sense to collect voice samples in the middle of a crisis.

”The coms were on,” she says as though that explains everything, ”the sample isn’t clean, understandably, but I’m pretty sure she’s speaking Tigrinya.”

”Don’t even know what that is,” Ian huffs, feeling strangely defensive when he shrugs and sits back in his chair.

”It’s an Ethiopian Semitic language,” Tang explains and rolls her eyes when she looks up at his no doubt dumbfounded face, ”really, nothing? You know, statistically we might as well’ve been speaking Mandarin right now.”

”Yeah, but we’re not,” Ian smirks, ”we’re speaking American, God bless us all.”

”Hou lian pi,” Tang most likely insults his family in some way, but probably not too bad since she’s clearly having a hard time not smiling at him while she’s doing it, ”you should probably try to be a bit more humble, Red. All these people waking up, at least sixteen percent of them’s gonna be speaking my language. And we’re generally not adversed to start revolutions.”

Ian grins and tries to think of a clever retort, but it’s just not there.

”Gonna miss you,” he says instead.

”I’m not staying here to die,” Tang tries to reason with him, shrugging off his concerns, ”I’ll return to Zion as soon as I can, and I’ll find you.”

The promise hits him a little harder than he’d like, thoughts immediately flowing back to Mickey. 

”How is he?” Tang asks, breaking him out of his instantly spiraling, anxious thoughts and making him look up at her again. It takes him a second to realize she’s referring to Yevgeny, and that she’s most likely _trying_ to distract him. He thinks he must have some kinda ’thinking of Mickey’ face that he pulls whenever he starts spinning outta control, she’s gotten really good at cutting him off before he starts hyperventilating, thinking of all the ways Mickey could be hurt or dead or lost in the veritable haystack of unplugged people slowly recovering in the care of the machines.

”Still under,” Ian confirms, pushing aside his bowl and locking his hands together on the table, ”but so far…”

She nods when he trails off, unwilling to jinx the kid’s recovery by admitting it to be ’so good’ out loud.

”Hey,” he says, remembering something he’s wanted to ask her for a while, ”do me a favor, alright? Call me Ian?”

”Okay?” she agrees, looking a little surprised. Ian can’t really tell if it’s because of the request or because she expected it to be something completely different.

”He might not remember me,” Ian explains, ”but if he does, you know… maybe it’ll help normalize this shit a little?”

”Sure,” Tang says and nods, ”of course, Ian.”

”Thanks,” he sighs and sits back in his chair, hands flat on the table and ready to push him up on his feet, ”do you need me right now?”

She shakes her head and grins at him. ”I need you to go back to your kid, make sure you’re there when he wakes up.”

Ian gets up and rounds the table, pointedly holding out a hand until she takes it and lets herself be pulled up from her chair and into a quick hug. He knows she’s not entirely comfortable with physical stuff, but she’ll just have to deal this time. She’s a little stiff at first, but then she sinks in against him and he can feel her hands clutch at the worn fabric of the back of his sweater. 

Yevgeny is still asleep when Ian gets back to his bunk, quietly securing the door behind himself. It’s nice and toasty under the blankets still so Ian just redistributes the heat packs a little and then settles back in by Yevgeny’s side, careful to check the IV and duck under the tube hanging down from the overhead when he rests his head down on the pillow, and his arm around the kid.

He thinks he’s only just closed his eyes for a second when he’s jostled back awake by a slight movement that isn’t coming from him. Yevgeny’s eyes are wide open and big, fat tears are falling silently down his cheeks, his chin trembling and teeth clattering.

”Hey,” Ian croaks and carefully picks himself up on his elbow to loom over Yevgeny, trying to catch his eye, ”okay, hey. Don’t cry.”

But Yevgeny just screws his eyes closed and a great sob tears through him when Ian tries to be as gentle as possible, touching a hand to the kid’s cheek and wiping at the wetness with the pad of his thumb.

”Shh, it’s okay-, it’s okay to be scared,” Ian whispers and leans down to touch their foreheads together for a second, before pulling back again to make sure Yevgeny doesn’t feel too crowded, ”but it’s alright, I’m here, I won’t let anything bad happen to you, okay?”

”Ian,” Yevgeny sobs and Ian has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from crying when he hears his name being spoken in the kid’s brittle voice, when he opens his eyes and looks at Ian just like he used to do inside the Matrix, ”there’s something in my arm.”

”Oh kiddo,” Ian breathes out and can’t keep himself from smiling, ”it’s okay, it’s not there to hurt you. I’ll take it out.”

He gets up to sit on the edge of the bed again, turning back to see Yevgeny following his every movement intensely. Ian locks their eyes and takes the kid’s arm in both hands, resting it across his lap and trying his best to shield Yevgeny from the view of the IV sticking out of his skinny forearm.

”It’s gonna feel weird,” he warns, smiling in what he hopes to be a reassuring way when Yevgeny swallows nervously, ”but you’re the toughest kid I know, Yevy, you’re gonna be just fine, right?”

Yevgeny nods, even though he doesn’t look at all convinced.

”Okay, one, two,” Ian counts and carefully pulls the needle out in one swift motion, ” _three_ , all done.”

He puts the IV away before Yevgeny catches sight of the ridiculously long needle, holding on to his hand and reaching out to touch the side of his face.

”How’s that?” he asks.

Yevgeny sniffs in a quick, snotty breath and looks down at his arm, frowning when he sees the black plug still there. He doesn’t seem too freaked out about it but he holds out his other hand and hovers it over the plug, like he wants to touch it but is still afraid to do it.

”It’s okay,” Ian reassures him, absently wondering how many times he’s gonna have to say that and not for the first time thinking how unfair it is to force a kid through this process, traumatic and never-ending, ”it’s not dangerous, it’s just part of you now.”

”Why?” Yevgeny sniffs, lips bending like he’s trying to stave off the tears welling up in his eyes again.

”I don’t know,” Ian admits, because he could tell the kid about the machines and the fields but those are just the horrifying circumstances, they don’t even begin to explain the _why_ , ”but I can tell ya you’re not alone, Yevy… look.”

He lets go of Yevgeny’s hand and pushing up his loose sleeve he reveals his own cephalic plug, smiling gently when Yevgeny immediately reaches out and touches his cold fingertips to it, feeling around the hard, black metal fused into Ian’s skin.

”They’re stuck all over,” Ian says and turns his back to Yevgeny, wide-eyed and looking more curious than afraid when he does, ”you’ll get used to them.”

Reaching over his shoulder, Ian grabs at the fabric of his sweater and bunching it up pulls both it and the t-shirt underneath up enough for Yevgeny to see the row if plugs running along his spine. It tickles a little when Yevgeny reaches out and feels along them with his fingers.

Ian lets go of his sweater and turns back around, absently seeking out Yevgeny’s hand again so he can hold on to it.

”You hungry?” he asks and nods when Yevgeny shakes his head. ”Cold? Do you need to pee?”

But Yevgeny just shakes his head, frown deepening between his bald brows.

”Where’s my mommy?” he asks, voice small and almost breaking towards the last syllable.

”She’s not here, Yevy,” Ian sighs, ”I’m sorry, I’m looking for her. Everything’s messed up right now but I promise I will find her.”

”Dad,” Yevgeny cries and covers his eyes, hides his face in the crook of his elbow while Ian’s still holding on to his other hand in a tight grip, ”I want my dad.”

Pressing his lips together Ian moves around so he can lie back down on the bed, stretching out on his side and tentatively reaching out for Yevgeny, pulling him in and wrapping his arms around him when the kid snuggles up against his chest and trembles with a series of heart-wrenching sobs.

”Hey,” he whispers and fits Yevgeny’s beanie-clad head under his chin, hugging him close, ”don’t worry Yevy, everything’s gonna be fine. I bet your dad’s looking for you right now, he will find you. Mickey will find us.”

He’s not even sure what he’s saying at this point, he just knows that he will promise this kid the world and then do his very best to give it to him. He only knows that Yevgeny seems to believe him and eventually calms down enough to stop crying and fall back asleep.

He knows that Mickey is out there, and that he won’t stop looking until he’s found his kid.

Ian’s never really believed in anything, but he believes in this. He believes in Mickey.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	10. Day 23, year unknown

Day 23, year unknown

 

”You awake?”

Mickey thinks he probably wasn’t, but he sure is now. The sun warm on his still closed eyes and tickling his nose, his cheeks heavy as they pull into a lazy smirk. It’s like he’s being made aware of his body in increments, starting with his pleasantly itchy and sleep-numb face and folding through him like a slow wave; a heavy weight against his back, an arm around his waist, a hand on his stomach, moving south, a hard dick nestling in between his thighs, sharp hips pressing into his soft ass with small, lazy thrusts.

”Mh,” he says, hoping it’s enough encouragement for Ian to just keep doing his thing. He does, Mickey can feel him smile into the skin on his neck and then he’s pressing down kiss after kiss, trailing the goosebumps flaring up in the wake of his warm breath. It’s a Friday morning and Ian’s been spending the night a lot lately, but tonight he’ll have to go home to his own apartment. A couple of weeks ago and Mickey’d be perfectly content with that, he likes time to himself and besides, weekends is time he spends with his son so it’s not like he’s sitting around pining or anything. Still, right now, if the choice was his, he’d never wake up without Ian in his bed again.

”Fuck, Mick,” Ian mumbles into his neck and his kisses turn a shade dirtier, lips and tongue mouthing at Mickey’s skin and his hand finally moving down to cup around his dick and balls, ”feel so good.”

Mickey groans and shoves his ass back a little, shuddering when Ian’s breath flows over the shell of his ear. He feels like he’s going deaf, reality muddled by static when all of his blood seems to flood down to his dick, pressing into Ian’s firm touch. They’d switched it up last night and while Mickey hardly feels like he’s in a position to complain about that, his plan had been to even out the score with round two and fall asleep content after having both kept the cake and damned well eaten it too. But plans don’t always pan out, and it would seem like they both drifted off before he could have his way. He’s not sure what the time is now, he’d have to open his eyes to find out and it doesn’t seem worth the effort just to most likely realize that getting laid is sure to get him late. 

Fuck work. He can be late.

”Wanna do this forever,” Ian sighs, his voice so low Mickey isn’t even sure he meant to say it out loud. He probably means humping his hard dick in between Mickey’s ass-cheeks, but it sure sounds like he could be talking about _them_.

_It’s time_ , Mickey thinks as he covers Ian’s hand with his own and his breathing falls into step with Ian’s chest, expanding and contracting against his back with each quickened inhale and exhale. _Tonight_. As soon as Mickey gets his voice back, he’s gonna ask Ian over for dinner, tonight, and he’ll get to meet the kid already. Test the waters, start their future together. It feels right.

It feels wrong, Ian’s grip on his dick is a little too rough and his hot breath is sharp and unfamiliar, it smells _wrong_.

”Come on, shh, don’t move,” Ian whispers, and his voice is wrong too, harsh and distorted, ”just let me put it in.”

Mickey’s not going deaf, he’s drowning. Reality crashing in and sunshine doubling over into relentless dark and cold. The cosy, confined space of his bedroom implodes and then expands in an instant into a massive looming emptiness, slowly filling up with the sounds and smells and presence of thousands upon thousands of living bodies, breathing and moving and whispering and crying and snoring.

And the dream disappears, like it’s done every fucking day since Mickey woke up in this nightmare of a new reality, but this time part of it lingers, hugging to his back and breathing into his hair, still rutting against his ass and grabbing at his dick.

”Dude, what the fuck?” Mickey complains, before he wakes up enough to clamp his fingers around the groping hand on his junk, bending it away and back until the guy stops thrusting and moaning and starts whimpering and squirming instead.

”Okay, okay,” the voice’s hissing, words falling out faster the more pressure Mickey puts on the guy’s hand, ”sorry, I’m cool, shit-, ah, please, you’re breaking my fucking hand, man.”

Mickey has half a mind to just do it, fucking rapey motherfucker probably deserves it, but he’s trying to keep a low profile and breaking a guy’s hand over some dry-humping is hardly that. He lets go and shuffles himself forward to distance himself from the other guy’s body, as much as he can without getting too close to the three hundred pound lady in front of him, on her back and fast asleep. 

It’s not been more than a minute before the fucking guy shuffles after, but at least this time he puts his gross hand on Mickey’s shoulder instead of groping at his privates.

”Hey, come on,” he whispers into Mickey’s ear, ”you help me I help you, like-, don’t gotta be ass, just get your hand down there, please. Feel that? I’m so hard, man, I just need a little help. I’ll blow you after, come on.”

Mickey quickly turns around to face the guy, and close enough that their noses bump he grabs at the waistband of his pants and shoves his hand down until he feels it close around the guy’s warm junk.

”Oh yes,” the guy breathes out, and it doesn’t smell any better aimed straight at Mickey’s face. Mickey doesn’t blink, he just locks their eyes and grabs on to the guy’s hips to keep him from going anywhere, and then he _squeezes_.

When the guy tries to get away, Mickey lets go of his hips to reach up and clutch his fist into his short hair, making sure the guy stays close enough to hear his steady, low voice.

”Do that again and I’ll cut your fucking balls off, you get me?” he says, frankly fucking relishing in the opportunity to take out some of his pent up frustration on this asshole’s rapidly deflating dick. ”You understanding me?”

The guy nods, turning even paler in the dark when Mickey smiles and lets go of both his hair and unmentionables to slip his hand out of the guy’s pants and pat him none too gently on the cheek.

”Smart,” he says and pushing the guy away from himself he turns his back on him again, only to find himself face to face with Three Hundred. She’s somehow managed to turn on her side and she’s got her eyes wide open, blinking at him when he looks at her.

”Okay?” she asks quietly, her English broken even in that one small word. Mickey feels himself relax a little bit and allows himself to give her a tightlipped smile and a quick thumbs up before he folds his arms over his chest and turns on his back, just in case she’d get it in her head to try and talk to him further. It’s nice to know that the friendly-looking, hefty lady’s got his back on this, he’s got no doubt she’d be good in a fight, but he’s also not interested in making friends. He just wants to sleep, maybe dream, he wants to keep moving, he wants to find his family. He wants a smoke so fucking bad it hurts. Fuck his brain for being so addicted to something that doesn’t even exist anymore.

He blinks up at the tarp stretched out about ten feet up, shielding the camp from the wind and sealing in the heat coming off the generators placed in all four corners of the wide-spread tent, humming steadily through night and day. It’s still kinda chilly inside the tents, but it’s a fuckton better than outside.

Wide awake and fidgeting on his dumb little foam mat he still hasn’t gotten even a little bit used to sleeping on, Mickey turns back on his right side only to be reminded of fucking Handsey McRapingson still fucking lying next to him, the least he could’ve done is move down a row or two, but no. This existential crisis of a humanitarian catastrophe has done exactly zilch to stop people from being inconsiderate assholes. Mickey’s just as horny and lonely as the rest of this miserable bunch, but Jesus Fucking Christ, the very least a person could do is fucking _ask_ first. It shouldn’t be such a difficult concept for people to get their heads around.

Mickey sighs and gives up on sleeping, sitting up and looking around himself at the rows and rows of people stretched out on their mats. He thinks he might be smack in the middle of the large tent because try as he might he can’t see the walls either which way he looks, the field of bodies stretching out into glum darkness now that the overhead lights have been turned off for what they insist is ’night’, but looks a whole lot the same as what they’re calling ’day’.

He’s antsy, and restless, and tired, so he convinces himself that he’s gotta pee and stands up, ambling vaguely down the narrow path between people’s feet towards the _facilities_. It’s pretty much just a hole in the ground with rows of seats stuck on top, but with the bland nutrients they’re being fed on the fucking daily, for every goddamned meal, the resulting mess isn’t nearly as bad as it reasonably should’ve been. Still, one does not go to the shithouse for privacy and peace of mind, that’s for damned sure, and anyway he doesn’t actually have to go at all, he just needs to get the fuck out of this tent for a second. 

It takes a full five minutes of straight walking for him to get to the edge of the tent, the tarp secured to the harsh pebble ground with long spikes to keep the makeshift walls from flapping in the wind. There’s usually a couple of guards walking around at night, stepping in when people less able to defend themselves than Mickey get assaulted, or someone picks a fight for one reason or another. It’s not hard to find a reason in this place, with shit being the way they are.

Mickey walks towards the slit in the tarp leading to the outhouse, warily eying the chick standing guard right next to it. He’s a grown-ass man, after all, he’s not super keen on this whole asking-permission-to-go-for-a-shit business. He sighs when she turns her head and spots him, stepping to the side just enough to get in his way. Mickey stops and picking up his freshly grown, and sorely missed, eyebrows he thumbs at the side of his nose and gestures towards the opening.

”Got the fuckin’ crown jewels out there, or something?” he asks, letting his hand fall down his side. ”Ain’t looking for trouble, lady, just gotta see a man about a dog, you know?”

The woman looks at him like he’s fucking lying or something, what on this wretched and ruined earth they think he’s gonna do out there that they need worrying about is well beyond him. A slight ruckus down the rows pull their attention for a second, the guard lady looking over Mickey’s shoulder and Mickey twisting around some to follow her line of sight.

Even at a distance, it looks to him like the normal bullshit. This many people in one place, emotions running high as a kind of default, of course there’s gonna be altercations. The hall monitor standing between him and a second or two of bone-chilling fresh air seems to be of a different mind though, stepping past him and closer to the rapidly escalating scene in case the other guards need her to step in. 

Mickey’s mama didn’t raise nothing but he’s still no fool, he waits for the guard to move past him and then he quietly slips outside.

It’s cold, but the wind isn’t as relentless as he expected it to be since right next to their tent is yet another tent, and next to them both another two and so on for as far as he can tell. He hasn’t counted but thinks there might be about ten tents in this camp, and close to forty thousand people. It’s one of the smaller camps he’s been to so far, and he’s already itching to move on to the next one. 

He’s not looking to set roots, he’s just looking for his son.

Keeping close to the shelter of the tarp Mickey moves in the opposite direction of the facilities, aimlessly sneaking through the narrow passageways between the tents and relishing the strange but cooly fresh air, and the reprieve from constant, unwanted company. There’s an odd fog dancing low in the air, creeping with him like it too is hiding from the wind, so it’s not until he’s standing almost directly underneath it that he looks up and notices the huge, patched up hovercraft towering above him.

He’s seen them before, on the first day and then more and more the last month, popping up from the ground and bringing supplies and manpower from Zion, and sometimes they bring word too. Redpills, or whatever the fuck they like to call themselves, standing around in closed quarters, talking in low, urgent voices. Sometimes there’s an open meeting with information but it’s always the same; supplies are coming, Zion is closed for travel, the machines have conceded land, cities will be built. Every effort is being made to compile a database of casualties and survivors, and families will be reunited in due time, please be patient and make sure you’re registered to your allocated camp. 

Mickey never writes his name down, and he doesn’t have his picture taken. Sometimes he thinks he _should_ register, that maybe there’s someone out there looking for him too and registering would help them find him, but he _can’t_. He can’t stay in one place and just wait for something to happen. So he moves from camp to camp and he looks, he looks through every list and every database, he walks through every tent and watches every face of every kid about Yevgeny’s height and build. It was devastatingly frustrating the first couple of weeks, but then people’s hair and eyebrows started sprouting all over the place and it got a little easier to move on to the next camp, and the next, without thinking that he might have walked past his own kid at some point and _not recognized him_. 

Mickey has to believe he will, though, that there’s bound to be some kind of deeper connection between them that’ll set off some kinda alarm if they get close, if they see each other again. Mickey thinks _he_ more or less looks the same, even with the weird-ass plugs running up his back and marring his arms and legs and chest, and his hair still short and his tattoos all gone. There’s no sane reason why he shouldn’t be able to recognize his family when he sees them.

But ’sane’ and ’reason’ aren’t exactly key words right now, in this place.

He’s been to fifteen camps in twenty-three days. He stays for as long as he needs and then he takes off at night and walks to the next one. Sometimes they’re back to back, sometimes there’s a few miles of wasteland in between in an attempt to spread people out some and make room for cities to be built around the people. Sounds like a solid enough plan to Mickey, but being Windy City born and bred he’s not really fazed by this new earth’s inhospitable conditions. He met a group from Hawaii the other day, now _that’s_ gotta hurt. They weren’t family but Mickey’s started seeing it all over; people banding together based on origin, even though culture and country and everything that ever held some kinda value to people before is now all gone. 

Except family. Some people have tried taking that away from Mickey, too, starting up with him on genetics and crop-assignment and all kinds of bullshit he never asked about in the first place. He doesn’t give a good god damned if Yevgeny was grown in a Russian prostitute’s womb or a fucking mechanic plant, he’s still family. So is Mandy and so are his brothers, and Svetlana too whether he likes it or not. Ian, he hopes. God fucking damned it, he still hopes.

’I will find you,’ he’d said.

Mickey doesn’t believe in a whole lotta things, but he thinks he believes in Ian. Maybe he shouldn’t, but he does. Maybe they’ll never get back what they had inside the Matrix, but Ian wouldn’t deny him this, Ian understands the value of family.

Waking up in the real world, it was pretty obvious right away that this was what’d happened to Ian months before, but the _why_ and the _how_ are still on the fuzzy side of clear. But if Ian was released from the Matrix before everyone else, it’d only make sense that he’s spent his time in Zion since his disappearance, so that’s where Mickey needs to be, wherever the fuck this place is and _whatever_ the fuck it is. The last city, deep underground where it’s still warm, that’s what they say. Mickey has a hard time picturing it, at this point even Zero One is making more sense to him than the elusive Zion. At least Zero One is on ground, and even though it’s looking a lot like a mechanic nightmare of a city from his fragile and human point of view, at least it’s an actual real place that he’s seen with his own two eyes.

Zion seems more like some kinda religious experience, like the answer to his every stolen prayer and starving need. Mickey’s always been wary of things that sound too good to be true, and he’s never trusted in religion for shit.

But he trusts Ian. He needs to find Ian.

He walks up to the looming hovercraft, letting the almost childlike elation and excitement he’s feeling at being close to something so big and vastly more advanced than anything he’s ever known take over from the otherwise relentless fear and worry of being in this place, and being alone. It’s a pretty stunning ship, even banged up and put back together with little to no care in the aftermath of what Mickey understands was a ruthless final confrontation between Zion and the machines. He’s heard a war story or two, but generally the Redpills aren’t too keen on mixing with the new kids so most things he thinks he knows is second hand information at best, or just stuff he’s ’accidentally’ overheard. He’s tried to ask around about Ian, but these people clearly get that kind of question a hundred times over, every day, and usually just walk away or tell him to sit the fuck down.

Apparently there was about a quarter of a million people in Zion towards the end of the war, so asking about Ian and hoping to find someone who’s seen him or knows him always was a pretty fucking long shot anyway.

”Hey!”

Mickey tears his eyes off the fascinating hull of the hovercraft and snaps his head to the side, to notice a square of bright light that’s silently opened up to his left, and the silhouette of a tall man climbing out of the ship and walking towards him.

”Shit,” Mickey mutters and looks around, quickly deciding that his chances of running away wouldn’t be worth the effort of actually _running away_ , one wrong shout from this guy and Mickey’s bound to have guards coming in from all sides. He squints back at the slowly approaching stranger and puts up a hand to shield his eyes against the stark contrast of the lights next to the constant outside glum.

”You alright?” the man calls out, and while Mickey knows better than to trust a friendly voice he still feels himself relax a little. ”Pretty sure you’re not supposed to be out here, mate.”

”Pretty sure what I’m doin’ is none of your fucking business, _mate_ ,” Mickey argues with a frown, smoothing out in surprise when a set of crooked teeth catch the sharp light with a wide grin, ”you a fucking limey?”

”Guilty as charged,” the guy admits and stops a few good feet away, but close enough for Mickey to actually make out most of his face.

”So like, the whole of existence was a lie but we still gotta put up with you smug assholes?” Mickey can’t help but antagonize the friendly-looking stranger, even though as he says it he wonders if it wouldn’t be a better idea to try and be nice for once, considering the situation.

”And you must be American,” the guy guesses and points at Mickey, ”charming on every plane of reality.”

”We try,” Mickey shrugs and then allows himself to smile, briefly mirroring his new companion’s wide grin.

”Art,” the guy introduces himself, holding out a steady hand for Mickey to shake, ”expat limey bastard.”

”Mickey,” Mickey offers without too much hesitation, grasping on to Art’s hand for a quick, firm shake, ”apple-pie eatin’, freedom lovin’ American citizen.”

”Lovely,” Art decides, nodding as he lets go of Mickey’s hand.

”Well, was anyway,” Mickey shrugs, ”guess I’m just another goop-eatin’ loser now, huh?”

Art winces and holds up his hands. ”Sorry.”

”Uh-huh, sure,” Mickey smirks, picking up his eyebrows, ”tell me you people got a secret stash of smokes down that city of yours and you’re alright in my book.” 

Mickey shakes his head and sucks on his front teeth when Art makes an apologetic face.

”’Course not, no, sure,” he sighs, ”’cause that’d go against this whole awesome dystopian theme you got going, I get it.”

”Yeah, no fags,” Art admits, but before Mickey’s had time to throw back a ’the fuck did you just call me?’ the guy’s sad frown flips upside-down and he starts to eagerly pat himself down, ”but if you think the free citizens of Zion have been stuck in a cave for one hundred years without figuring out a way to grow some quality weed, you must be mental.”

Mickey watches him warily until Art has produced both a generous joint and a small square thing that looks almost, but not at all, like a lighter and he’s puffing away at the rolled up soother, looking pleased as all hell.

”My new best friend,” Mickey mutters when Art holds out the joint for him to take, smoke flowing out the side of his mouth. Filling his own lungs, Mickey tries to imagine how this is the first time his body does this, tries to understand why he isn’t hacking and tearing up like he’d done at twelve years old. Three weeks since he woke up, and he thinks that this is the only good moment he’s had so far that isn’t a fucking dream or a hope against all hope.

He closes his eyes and savors the feeling of hot smoke billowing out his nostrils, licks his lips quickly like he can taste the dry paper on them before he puts the joint back and pulls in another deep drag.

”Good shit,” he says and hands it back to Art who just nods emphatically as he puts the joint to his lips, ”Zion, huh? You been there?”

”It’s home,” Art says with a lopsided shrug, ”been for the past two years.”

Mickey doesn’t miss a beat. ”I’m looking for someone.”

Holding up a hand to decline the joint when Art’s trying to pass it back, Mickey pulls out the folded up piece of paper he’s got stuck behind the waistband of his ill-fitting pants, paper and clothes all kept in place only thanks to a tightly drawn belt. Art looks at the held out piece of paper for a second, before he accepts it and gives Mickey the joint in return.

”About this tall,” Mickey supplies and holds up the joint a couple of inches above his own stature, as Art carefully unfolds the paper, ”hundred and sixty something pounds, red hair, like-, grey-green eyes, freckles for fucking days.”

Art glances up at him and then back down on the paper, starting to shake his head but then stopping himself to frown. Mickey’s no fucking Michelangelo, but he thinks that out of the numerous crappy drawings he’s made of Ian’s face on every piece of scrap paper he’s managed to steal or tear down from announcement boards since he woke up, this is the one where he managed to capture something. A _look_ , more than exact features, maybe. But _something_ very much like Ian.

”Ian,” he says, stepping a little closer and dropping his hand, joint pretty much forgotten, ”Ian Gallagher?”

Art shakes his head again, it’s just the tiniest of movements but it’s still in the wrong direction. Mickey thinks he can physically feel the sudden flush of hope drain right out of him again, and he starts grasping for straws just to hold on to it for a little while longer.

”He disappeared three months before the rest of us woke up,” he explains quickly, ”don’t gotta be a genius to figure out it was you guys who got to him an’ that this means he oughta be in this… _Zion_ place. Right?”

”Most redpills join the fleet when they get extracted,” Art says and makes an apologetic face when he looks back up at Mickey, and Mickey wants to fucking punch it off him, ”we’ve suffered severe casualties, I don’t-”

”He’s not dead,” Mickey interrupts and he knows that he sounds like he’s in denial, but it’s not that, it’s not that, he _knows_ , ”he’s _not_ dead.”

Art nods, looking back down at the drawing. ”Me and faces, mate, it’s-, what did you say his name was?”

”Gallagher,” Mickey repeats, shifting his stance and trying to remain calm, ”Ian Gallagher.”

Art huffs and smiles in that pretty much insufferable way his kind like to do when they think they’re fucking superior just ’cause they’ve spent more time in this post-apocalyptic hellhole than Mickey has.

”Nah,” he says, ”his _real_ name.”

”Fuck you, that _is_ his real name,” Mickey spits, pointing at Art with the neglected joint still stuck between two fingers, ”I know you people think it’s his fucking ’slave name’ or whatever, but his deadbeat parents gave him that name, not some machine, and if he kept it in the Matrix there’s no reason why he’d not fucking keep it out here, too.”

Chuckling like some asshole, Art holds up his hands in defeat.

”Easy now,” he says with a calm grin, ”I’m sure that’s true, but there’s a certain way things work here, you get me? If he got unplugged when you say he did, he would have _had_ to use his free name.”

Mickey sighs and takes a step back, angling himself away some and rubbing at the tense creases on his forehead. He pulls at the joint and taps off the ash before he hands it back to Art, giving him a curt nod as a kind of apology.

”Do you know his hacker handle?” Art asks and smiles around the joint, blowing out smoke between them when Mickey rolls his eyes. ”What?”

”Wouldn’t call him a fucking hacker, but sure,” Mickey scoffs, ”called himself ’Red’ when he was online.”

Art nods and hands back the drawing, but keeps the joint to himself.

”I’ve seen him,” he says, frowning in concentration when Mickey snaps his head up to stare at him, ”yeah, met him a while back. Didn’t talk to him or anything, but I remember because he transferred from the Locust to the Nightingale when I was working supplies, stocking both ships when they were in port last.”

Mickey feels like he can’t breathe, swallowing convulsively he has to remind himself to pull air into his lungs. He knew Ian had been unplugged before everyone else, he _knew_ , but now it feels more real than anything has, ever since he woke up. 

”What-,” he starts and blinks at the strange sound of his own uncertain voice, ”the Nightingale?”

”Uh-huh,” Art is looking at him like he’s expecting him to topple over, ”she’s only defensively armed, strictly medic and rescue.”

It makes no sense, but Mickey doesn’t care.

”Is he safe?” he asks, surprised that his voice holds up at all.

Art shakes his head. ”I don’t know, it’s mental down there and I’ve been shipping supplies pretty much nonstop since I got my baby back in the air. I think the ship is flying, but the crew-, I couldn’t tell you.”

”It makes no fucking sense,” Mickey mutters, ”Ian’s a fighter, why would he ship out with a fucking medical unit?”

He looks up when Art sticks out the joint, it’s only a short nub at this point but there’s enough of it left for Mickey to put it to his lips and pull in a decent lungful of smoke.

”Can’t tell you that either, friend,” Art says, offering him a sympathetic smile, ”but people change, you know? I had nothing when I left the Matrix, but if I had someone still stuck in there… whatever he was to you, am I wrong to assume it isn’t over?”

”Gonna have to kill me first,” Mickey admits, surprising himself with how easy it is, ”we-, we had a fight, but I don’t think he meant for all this shit to happen.”

Mickey glances up at Art as he tosses the burnt out joint to the side and widens his stance a little like he’s still, always, bracing for a fight whenever he makes his personal preferences clear. But Art doesn’t look bothered, instead he just nods.

”I imagine your priorities change, when you got someone you love stuck inside something like the Matrix,” he says, hugging his arms across his chest now that they don’t have the weed to keep them warm anymore, ”I don’t imagine that this is what he would’ve wanted for you, waking up out here. Maybe he decided to fight a different battle, rather than join our war against the machines.”

Mickey doesn’t even know what to say to that, he’s tried and tried to understand why Ian chose to leave him, to leave the Matrix, only to end up deciding not to think about it anymore. It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care, he just needs to see Ian again and make sure he’s alright, none of that other shit matters as long as he’s alright. It never really occurred to Mickey that Ian might have been out here trying to figure out a way to get back, and that part of _why_ might have been _him_ all along.

”I will find you,” he mumbles, only vaguely aware that he’s said it out loud when he wipes at his treacherously wet nose and looks up at Art to notice his dark eyes practically pooling with sympathy. 

”Look,” Art starts, eyebrows bunching up like he’s about to do something he really isn’t supposed to and Mickey thinks he’s really starting to fucking like the dude already, ”Zion is closed, but one of my crew kind of jumped ship three camps back, she found her grandmother and wanted to stay behind, can you believe it? What are the odds, right?”

”Right,” Mickey sighs, thinking he understands just what Art’s trying to tell him. The odds are not in his favor, he gets it. But then again, when were they ever?

”So technically I’ve got a permit for five people to return to Zion,” Art continues, sounding less reluctant with each word, ”and only eight hands on deck. Are you registered to this camp?”

”Fuck no,” Mickey says and swallows, unwilling to jump to conclusions before Art straight up offers him what he thinks the guy might be offering, ”I’ve been going camp to camp since I woke up, man, and I’ll fucking walk to Zion if I have to.”

”Well, that’s one way to do it,” Art says, his quick grin wide and genuine, ”or you could hitch a ride with me?”

Mickey stares at him for a second and then he’s nodding, not really trusting his own voice to come out in any way right. It’s not in him to trust the kindness of strangers, but as it is now he’s sincerely got _nothing_ left to lose.

”I still have deliveries,” Art says and sounds like he’s fucking apologizing for it, ”but give it a week or two and you’ll be in Zion, you have my word.”

Mickey lets out a shaky breath and then he nods again, not knowing what the fuck else to do.

”Shit,” he says and huffs out a wet laugh, ”fuck. Yeah, I mean-, _yes_ , I-”

Art looks very amused by Mickey’s graceless acceptance and holds out his hand again.

”Damani,” he says, smiling when Mickey shakes his hand, ”that’s what I used to be called. And my mum gave me that name, you know, always used to tell me that it means ’tomorrow’.”

”Uh-huh,” Mickey grins, too fucking elated right now to stop, when he stands back and feels the weight of the past three weeks fall off his chest a little, ”so what’s ’Art’ all about then? That like some kinda douchey self-assessment or, like, short for some royally impressive delusion of grandeur?” 

”No,” Art laughs and starts walking backwards toward the still open bridge behind him, nodding at Mickey to follow, ”no, not King Arthur, and while I do consider myself quite the work of art, thank you very much, it’s not that either. It’s short for Artemis.”

”Like the Greek god?” Mickey questions, pausing for a second right outside the hovercraft to screw his face up in a confused frown. ”Isn’t Artemis a chick?”

Art laughs and stops to punch a big red button right inside the craft, causing the bridge to slowly start closing and Mickey to quickly climb inside.

”Goddess of hunt and virginity,” Art admits, gesturing down the narrow passageway as he starts walking, looking over his shoulder to make sure Mickey follows, ”I was fifteen when I chose my handle, alright? I didn’t know.”

”Nah, it’s cool,” Mickey shrugs, busy looking all around himself as they make their way through the hovercraft, ”your ship got a name?”

Art reaches out and pats a panel as he passes it, causing Mickey to glance up at it when he follows.

”Aramis?” he reads, picking up his step a little to not fall behind when Art climbs up some steps and into what must be the cockpit. ”You fucking serious right now? Is that a coincidence or do you have like, a specific type when it comes to names?”

”Coincidence!” Art insists, sitting down on a chair and checking something on one of the cockpit’s many confusing screens, full of information Mickey feels he can’t even really begin to process, just glancing at it. ”Guy who named her was Haitian Creole, I think. Did you know Alexandre Dumas was black?”

”Mazel tov,” Mickey shrugs and thinks about sitting down when Art decides for him, standing up again and leading him back down the stairs and through another dim corridor, ”don’t even know who that is.”

”Author, he wrote The Three Musketeers,” Art explains, but doesn’t sound like he thinks Mickey’s stupid for not knowing, ”and Aramis is one of the aforementioned three, you know?”

”Yeah, yeah,” Mickey remembers, ”I saw the movie. Not really a book guy, or whatever, never had the brains for it.”

He doesn’t know why he says it like that, so fucking obviously vulnerable. He always kinda wanted to be a book guy, but growing up where he did and the way he did, that was beat out of him quick enough. Between his old man calling his first book report ’faggy’ when Mickey’d proudly presented the first (and last) A he ever got to his parents at eight years old, and his teacher calling him an idiot in front of the whole class four years later, any hidden desire to be a _reader_ had died a long time ago. But between reading to Yevgeny, and Ian buying him the first book he’s ever owned for father’s day, saying he saw it while he was out shopping for cologne with the kid and that it made him think of Mickey, like it was a natural thing to do, Mickey’d started to think that maybe he had it in him to change. To follow dreams he thought had been long since squashed. 

But he never got around to read the stupid book before everything went to hell, and now every book he’s ever secretly wanted to read is gone forever, along with the rest of the world. 

Art doesn’t say anything, but leads him through the ship, past a row of closed doors until he comes to one that he opens, twisting the round handle with both hands.

”Bunk for you,” he announces and shows Mickey inside the narrow room, furnished very sparingly with a bed and what looks like a couple of hidden compartments sunk into the walls, Art walks along them and touches the different handles as he speaks, ”loo, sink, clothes, chemical shower, just pull the handles and then push them back in when you’re done.”

Mickey nods, thinking he’s probably got it in him to try everything out once he’s got his privacy.

”Oh,” Art snaps his fingers and walks over to the bed, dislodging a small screen stuck to the wall next to the pillow, ”Nell left this tablet behind, you know how to use it?”

Before Mickey’s answered, Art sidles up next to him and holds out the tablet so Mickey can see when he taps the screen a couple of times, making it change with every little touch of his finger. Mickey’s never seen anything like it but he finds that it doesn’t overwhelm him, instead he thinks it’s the first time he feels excited about something since he woke up.

”No,” he says, cradling the tablet in his hands when Art offers it to him, ”but I’m good with technology.”

”It’s got all sorts on it,” Art continues to poke at the screen even as Mickey’s holding it, ”books, here-, The Three Musketeers, voila.”

Mickey stares at the words on the now white screen, blurred by weeks, _months_ , of pent up emotion rolling back in and through him over some stupid fucking book. A _French_ book, none the less. But it feels like a link to something he’s lost, this ship feels like the physical manifestation of a sense of hope he’s not sure he’s ever allowed himself to feel.

”Not a book guy,” he mutters, more to himself than to Art, as he gently puts his pointer finger to the screen, something fluttering inside him when the page moves along with the careful swipe of his fingertip.

”We messed up good,” Art says, backing towards the door when Mickey blinks and looks up at him, ”but Mickey, being out here… you can be whatever you want, you know?”

Mickey frowns at him, stuck between calling bullshit and wanting to believe him. Art smiles and nods, pushing at the door open and stepping through it.

”Get some sleep,” he turns around and looks back at Mickey, ”the mess is down this corridor to your left, and we’re taking off again in a couple of hours. Come find me when you’re feeling well rested and I’ll show you around, alright? We’ll find you something to do.”

”Sure,” Mickey feels like he’s about to crash, completely overwhelmed by this sudden turn of events but at the same time excited by the prospect of finally getting somewhere, and maybe getting to do something useful, maybe learn something about this new world in which he’s most likely gonna have to spend the rest of his life, ”thanks.”

Art nods.

”Welcome onboard,” he says and closes the door.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AaaaaaaaaaaaaaI'm such a mess, it's Wednesday. Hello <3


	11. Day 38, year unknown

Day 38, year unknown.

 

There’s a loud knock echoing through the tank above Mickey’s head, shaking him out of his thoughts and breaking his concentration. He slips with the wrench and scrapes his knuckles on a sharp edge, cursing between clenched teeth and relaxing back on the dirty floor for a second before he scoots down and grabs the bottom of the tank to pull himself out from under it and sit up.

”Fuck,” he mutters and slumps back against the rusty tank, sucking at the light scrape across his knuckles and glaring up at Art, standing above him and looking anything but sympathetic, ”warn a guy next time?”

”Pretty certain the knocking was the warning, Mickey,” Art says with a shrug, eyeing Mickey’s hand where it’s still stuck to his mouth by the knuckles, ”did you actually hurt yourself or are you just making a fuss?”

”Fuck you,” Mickey huffs, shaking the sting out of his hand and then moving it out of sight, ”don’t worry about it.”

”Well, now I _am_ worried,” Art shakes his head and walks over to a beat up cabinet at the other end of the cooler room, firmly hitting the side of it with his fist, once, causing the door to fly open as though he’s the fucking Fonz himself.

”Ey,” Mickey sighs, like a reluctant tick, and smirks when Art comes back over and sits down opposite him, crosslegged and resting a small box on his knee. It’s just a tiny scrape, but the ship is covered in rust from nose to rear and Mickey’s come too far to die from something as backwards as tetanus. He lets Art take his hand and pull it closer to him, examining the small wound and then carefully dressing it.

Mickey sniffs and looks away from Art’s working hands, wiping at his nose and staring at his dirty boots, one size too big was the best they could do for him when he joined the Aramis’ crew and he no longer could wear the warm, but soft, hand-me-downs he’d been given by the relief team ushering the newly awakened and disoriented people from the machines’ medical bay to the camps. He doesn’t remember much from between waking up the first time in his pod and the second time on a cold metal slab, tubes sticking out of his arms and legs, his skin still covered in hundreds of tiny prick marks. It hadn’t been too bad, just confusing and cold, and there’d been nothing to do but follow what little direction he was given whenever something nudged him forward. The machines weren’t even that scary, floating around and clearly more concerned with mending humans than killing them, but to say that they were welcoming or comforting would be a long fucking stretch. 

Stepping into his first camp, things hadn’t been that much different. Just more crying. Overwhelmed and exhausted, people coming in from Zion were obviously trying to bring some order to the chaos and ended up treating people in much the same way the machines had. Not badly, just coldly. 

Mickey was never looking for some random to care for him, to huddle up with against the wind and the devastation, but his skin is still tingling with every second of contact it gets. Anyway, he isn’t fucking tearing up over someone being decently nice and gentle with him for the first time in months, cleaning his fucking wounds or whatever like some nurse fantasy sprung to life, it’s just that his nose gets runny in the cold chambers of the lower deck and the chemicals off Art’s medical supplies sting and water his eyes. Nothing funny about it.

”There,” Art says with one final press of his fingertips over the antibacterial tape, ”all better.”

Mickey doesn’t immediately pull his hand back and has to pay dearly for it, Art grabbing hold of his fingers and bringing his knuckles up to his lips so he can press a quick kiss to the bandaged boo-boo.

”Urh,” Mickey complains and quickly retracts his hand, sitting up a little straighter so he can shuffle back and only symbolically away from Art, crossing his arms, ”that’s just fucking unsanitary, man.”

Art grins at him. He’s a weird guy, nothing fucking fazes him ever and he’s got some boundary issues Mickey’s just had to learn to deal with for the last couple of weeks, but his heart if firmly lodged in the right place and his generosity towards Mickey has been nothing short of mind-blowing. Food, rest, warmth, clothes, solitude, company, entertainment, purpose, safe passage. The list is long and improbable, but in the end down to only one thing; Art had the means and opportunity to help Mickey without any great cost to himself or to his ship, so he did it. Mickey would distrust his motives if he weren’t so desperate to trust in something going his way, for fucking once.

”How’s she treating you?” Art asks and smiles up at the tank behind Mickey’s back, his lazy eyes sweeping over Mickey’s work but no longer fooling anyone, Mickey knows it’s just a smokescreen over his sharp mind. ”Hey, did you fix the thermostat?”

Mickey glances up at the display above his head, even though he can’t see much from his awkward angle.

”Yeah,” he says and avoids looking at Art’s proud grin, ”wasn’t hard. Fucking evaporator is giving me hell though.”

”Well, I suggest you forfeit,” Art says and holds out the box on his lap so he can get up on his feet in one surprisingly graceful move, ”we’re almost there.”

Mickey knew it was coming, he knew they’d reach Zion today, but obviously it hadn’t sunk in at all. His throat is dry and his heart is beating so fast he can’t feel it, or has it stopped? Fucking bullshit, it’s beating just like normal and one good swallow deals with the desert in his throat. They don’t even know if Ian’s there, every attempt at contacting the Nightingale has been met with static and buzz, and even without Mickey asking him to do it Art has consistently advised against inquiring about Ian’s status directly to control. Zion is overcrowded and chaotic, and Mickey sneaking in to look for Ian is one thing, announcing it to people likely to wanna stop him is another.

”Come on,” Art breaks him out of his thoughts, ”you definitely don’t want to miss this.”

Mickey follows Art through the ship in silence, nodding vaguely at other crew members when they pass someone. Besides Art and himself there are only three other people on the Aramis, but Mickey still isn’t sure he can name them all. He’s spent a lot of time in his bunk or down with the cooler where Art had quickly put him to work when he realized that Mickey has a good hand with shit like that, and he more or less assumes that Art has told his crew to pretend that Mickey isn’t there at all. It works out alright for Mickey, fewer weird names for him to remember and less people he gotta pretend to care about for the duration of his hopefully brief stay.

He doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen if he doesn’t find Ian in Zion. Making those kinda plans right now feel like defeat, and they’re just not acceptable.

Art disappears up the short stairs and into the cockpit, and Mickey takes a deep breath before he grabs on to the railing and follows. Glancing out the windows the dreary vista looks the same at first, but then he starts noticing a few remarkable differences. There’s no rubble, for one, and the passageway seems half dug out of rock and half built from iron and steel with purpose and function other than sewage in mind.

”Alright,” Art’s pilot mumbles, Mickey thinks her name might be Zade, and flips a switch, ”this is the Aramis on approach, requesting access through gate 3.”

Mickey’s eyes widen involuntarily for a second before he squints down the narrow passageway they’re hovering through, around a subtle bend that suddenly reveals a large square of white light not too far ahead.

 _”The Aramis,”_ a woman’s voice comes through the speakers, _”this is Zion control, maintain present velocity and stand by.”_

”Roger that, control,” Zade replies, sitting back in her chair and relaxing her grip on the stick as the static shuts off and leaves the cockpit in a calm silence for a couple of seconds. They’re steadily creeping closer to the square of light, slowly becoming more defined as it grows and Mickey’s eyes adjust to looking at anything other than grey glum. It looks like a port, grey and cold same as everything else, but well lit and vast and oddly welcoming after weeks of temporary tents and the small comforts of an airborne battleship. Suddenly the static turns back on and the voice returns.

 _”The Aramis,”_ control repeats, her voice just as calm as before, _”you are clear through gate 3, to bay 7. Welcome home.”_

”See,” Art says and Mickey’s only vaguely aware of how he gestures towards the already open gate ahead, ”was a time when this was closed and bolted, at all times, and moving in and out was a big deal.”

”Still seems like a pretty big fucking deal,” Mickey mutters, moving his head to glance around and miss as little as possible as they pass through the massive gate and into a large dome, expanding the space so far above them it almost feels possible to imagine that they’re not miles underground.

”It is,” Art agrees, even though he seems to miss Mickey’s more general, awestruck point, ”the open gates are a show of good faith-, a heavily debated show of good faith, mind you.”

”But Zion is closed?” Mickey manages to ask as they hover through the port, passing over ship after ship, each looking pretty banged up and different from the next, like they’ve grown from the same shape into individuals while flying under different crews and captains.

”They’ve already scanned us for bodies,” Art hums and gets up, throwing Mickey a carefree grin as he walks past him and out of the cockpit again, ”and they don’t seem to _openly_ mind that the six foot Scandinavian girl we shipped out with has been turned into a rather compact American man, so… I’m tempted to call this crazy scheme a success!”

Mickey feels his eyebrows fly up as he turns away from the windows to follow Art down the stairs again.

”There was risk of that happening?” he asks, a sort of panicked annoyance creeping into his voice.

”Yeah, maybe,” Art admits dismissively, waving a hand over his shoulder and quickly walking Mickey to his bunk, even though he knows his way around the ship pretty well by now, ”pack up your stuff and stay in your bunk until I come get you, alright?”

”Yeah, alright,” Mickey frowns, eying Art suspiciously as he moves past him and through his opened door, ”you expecting trouble ’cause of me?”

”No,” Art says, simply, and he looks like he means it, ”but there will be people moving in and out for a while once we dock, and it’d be better for everyone involved if you make yourself scarce, meanwhile.”

Mickey reaches out a hand to place it against the door when the whole ship suddenly dips and shakes, moving a sharp inch forward and another back again, messing with Mickey’s balance and causing Art to step back so he can lean against the bulkhead behind him.

”Hey,” he says, smiling a little and shrugging when Mickey looks up at him, ”you’ve made it, we’re at the finish line.”

Mickey feels two seconds away from asking a bunch of stupid questions, all starting with ’what if?’, so he clamps his mouth shut and scowls to cover for his worried eyes.

”Just gotta find him, man,” he allows himself to reiterate, like he needs it to convince himself of something he’s starting to think might have been farfetched at best, hopeless at worst, ”shit, don’t know why I keep thinking that’s all I need to do, that he can fix everything like some fuckin’ wizard.”

”Maybe because you love him, you know?” Art tries, obviously a little uncertain since he doesn’t know more about this than what Mickey’s told him, which isn’t a whole lot. ”Everything’s a little easier when you’re not alone, at least, and I don’t think he has to be magic to love you back, right?”

Mickey scoffs and rolls his eyes at Art’s cheesy advice, but can’t help grinning at the guy when he looks a little downtrodden by Mickey’s reaction.

”Nah, not magic,” Mickey admits, even though magic is probably pretty much exactly what he thinks Ian is, ”just unlucky.”

”Oh, poor you, you’re so hopelessly unloveable, with your good looks and your stalwart loyalty,” Art grins, pushing off the wall and standing steadily in the middle of the hallway, the ship still and the engines winding down below their feet, ”now you’re just fishing for compliments, I’m not an idiot.”

Mickey shrugs and tries to look innocent, but he’s never been very good at that.

”Only magic boys with lion hearts and fairy wings can love you, got it,” Art recites, rolling his eyes and waving his hands as though to heard Mickey back into his bunk, ”so let’s go find him, then!”

Mickey doesn’t own shit so he’s got nothing to pack. But it’s what Art told him to do, so he considers that an invitation to help himself to the threadbare duffle bag he finds at the bottom of his pull-out closet, and to fill it with whatever he can find that suits him. It’s not a lot, a couple of ugly sweaters he’s kinda taken a shine to and a pair of pants that he has to roll up around the ankles but otherwise fit him alright. He wonders if they used to belong to the six foot Scandinavian woman whose place on the ship he’s occupying, and sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting, he absently wonders what that says about him.

Deciding that it probably says more about her than him, he takes out the tablet and taps around on it, aimlessly trying to make the most of what little time with it he’s got left. He thinks he probably should feel more guilty about it than he does when he turns the tablet off and shoves it down his bag, padding it with wooly socks on both sides.

He probably should just ask Art if he could keep it, but Mickey’s never been good at asking for anything, never liked feeling like he owes people stuff, or favors. He already owes Art so much he knows he can’t ever repay.

He’s lying down on his narrow bed, staring at the overhead and purposefully losing track of time, when there’s a knock on his door and the lock twists open. He sits up and feels his body tense up, ready for a fight, and instantly relaxing again when Art peeks his head around the door.

”Let’s go,” he says with a smile and no preamble, waiting for Mickey to collect his bag before he leads the way through the ship one last time. The rest of the crew seems to have left already but Mickey doesn’t ask about them, quite content with trailing half a step behind Art in silence, stepping off the bridge and walking across the dock through the looming, massive port. He tries to keep his flytrap shut and not overtly ogle every little foreign, impressive thing he sees, but he’s not sure how successful he is, hitching up the bag on his shoulder and tipping his head back to take in the overhead dome.

He’s such a fucking obvious tourist he’s surprised he hasn’t been arrested yet.

But once they clear the dock and head for one of the exits, the port is teeming with people and not one of them seem to spare him so much as an extra glance. Some of them stop to briefly grab Art’s hand, or shoulder, or his whole torso into a quick hug, but no one stops to talk or ask about Mickey hovering behind him like some anxious ghost. Mickey sees _them_ , though, especially when they’re walking around in huge robot suits, brandishing five foot machine-guns and looking about ready to fight Godzilla, like it’s no big fucking deal.

”This is some Alien exoskeleton power loader bullshit,” he mutters, and probably sounds a little more like a kid at Christmas than he’d necessarily intended, staring up at the ridiculous robocop-lookin’ motherfucker walking past, forcing them to pause for a second, ”Jesus-, this shit working off hydraulics?”

Art chuckles and shakes his head.

”You’ll do just fine here,” he decides, his pleased smile slipping when he looks at Mickey to see his demanding eyebrows, ”seriously? I don’t know, Mickey, I’m not a robotics engineer, I’m barely even an adequate engineer of my own bloody ship.” 

The badass robodude moves out of the way and Art starts walking again, Mickey trailing behind as they dodge their way through the milling crowd.

”You’re gonna have to find someone else to geek out over these things,” he says over his shoulder, ”it shouldn’t be too hard.”

The exits, Mickey finds once they step through the closest set of doors, are _not_ actually exits but elevators, and even though he looks right at him when Art presses one of the buttons, Mickey still can’t tell if they’re going up or down once they start moving. He vaguely suspects it to be down, it usually seems to be down with these people.

When the doors open again, gone is the large open space and instead they walk straight into a crossing of three narrow passageways, people sitting along the walls forcing them to move forward in a line as Art foregoes left and right to lead them through the middle option. Everything looks the same to Mickey, so he just follows.

The passage is dark and curved, every inch from hip-level up and across the arched ceiling covered with pipes and wires. Mickey tries to identify the water pipes, cold and hot, and the covered wiring, everything blurring and mixing under the mess of dust and rust. He wants to look at the people sitting at his feet, he wants to see their bent faces, not leave a single stone unturned, but he can’t get himself do fucking do it. He stares at the pipes and Art’s back, leading the way, and he hopes that he isn’t going to find Ian sitting on some floor somewhere, all agency and hope lost, with nowhere to belong, and he’s kinda hating himself for thinking it’s even a possibility. 

He hopes Ian has had somewhere good to call home since he left the Matrix, that he’s had someone to help him through his highs and lows. He can’t help thinking that the sick are the first to go, in situations like these; harsh and unforgiving. Full of desperate people scrambling to get theirs and not minding who they push down. Ian is strong as fuck, and stubborn, and thrifty, but he’s also none of those things when his bipolar drags him down. Mickey’s more than once considered asking Art about this shit, but it feels immovably personal. It’s something fundamental about himself that Ian has chosen to share with Mickey, only because Mickey wanted to know. Wanted to help. Not because he should feel free to air their problems to others that aren’t included in their exclusive intimacy. 

He finds it so weird that he still thinks of Ian this way, like the guy didn’t also choose to leave, and like they haven’t been apart now for _months_. Like somehow there’s still ’us’ and ’we’ and ’ours’.

Weird but not really much of a surprise, Mickey’s always known this about himself. That he has a hard time letting people go, that he always will fight before he walks. That he’s been in every kinda love there is to have with Ian since he was a seventeen year old closet case, and he’s not gonna stop now.

”Home sweet home,” Art mutters ahead of him and Mickey looks up in time to blink at the suddenly bright opening of the passageway, leading out to a balcony stretching both ways and all around another wide open space; this time a huge hole in the ground stretching up and down as far as he can see, walking up to the banister and peering down into seeming endlessness, obscured by a litany of bridges crossing the abyss from every side on every level. It looks like a bee hive, or like a massive spaceship crashed into the rock and fused into this cylindrical city, half cave, half building, a kind of inverted apartment complex burrowing down into the ground.

”You live here?” is the only thing he can think of to say, not even sure if Art’s still by his side until he answers.

”Yeah, this is it,” he says, moving into Mickey’s periphery and leaning against the railing, Mickey thinks he can feel it wobble under their weight even though he logically knows it’s not, ”this is Zion.”

Mickey’s first real contact with anything that wasn’t _home_ , was when Mandy moved out of town. Sometimes they would talk on the phone and he’d closed his eyes and tried to picture her in some place he didn’t know what it looked like. Some cities are on TV and in movies so often he almost remembers them like he’s been there, but Mandy ended up in Fucksville, Indiana, a place as seen on _nowhere_ , and famous for nothing. Mandy’d promised to send a postcard sometime when he’d bitched about it, but she never did.

Now she’s… somewhere. And postcards aren’t even a thing anymore.

”Come on,” Art says and puts a hand to Mickey’s shoulder, it’s probably meant to be soothing but Mickey cringes away from the touch and takes a step back from the railing, away from Art who’s still fucking smiling like he doesn’t mind when Mickey tears his eyes from the underground city to glare at him, ”unless you fancy going door to door and canvassing all of Zion on foot, I suggest we go find ourselves an informant.”

”You know someone?” Mickey asks, rolling his shoulders and keeping his eyes firmly on the path ahead of them as they start walking, side by side this time.

”Trust, Mickey!” Art insists, holding up a finger for emphasis. ”I know exactly who to talk to.”

Mickey raises his eyebrows and gestures forwards with his hand, silently telling Art to lead the way. They walk along the balcony for maybe a quarter of the at least mile long circumference before Art turns them into another winding passageway, slanting downwards after a while and slowly turning into more rock than iron the further they walk. 

There’s people everywhere; sitting on the floor, standing in lines that don’t seem to go anywhere they’re so long and slow, walking up and down the passage looking like they’ve got somewhere important to be, or just looking lost.

”This is our temple,” Art points out as he leads Mickey into an actual cave, natural and vast with pillars of stalactites, and filled with even more people, ”okay, I think-, down here.”

Art sounds like he probably could be more confident about his plan, but Mickeys still follows him through the crowd, sidestepping lines and hostile glares, beggars and crying children and people with big coolers handing out food at an agonizingly slow pace.

There’s a large clay statue in the center of the cave and it’s becoming increasingly clear with every step they’re taking that this is where they’re heading. Mickey stretches himself to his full length, maybe gets on his toes or whatever, too, and tries to figure out what about the statue other than ’visible’ is making it their target. A group of people move out of his line of sight and he sees some of the tables set up around the clay monument, in a tight circle around what looks like a bed of flowers laid out on the ground at the statue’s feet.

”Information?” Mickey asks, grabbing Art by the elbow to keep him close. ”You’re taking me to a fucking information desk?”

”Yes, technically,” Art scrambles to explain himself when Mickey’s eyebrows bunch together and his mouth falls open, ready to unleash hell, ”but we’re not looking through any lists or databases, I promise. Hey! Tali!”

Mickey looks over at the information desk to see a woman waving back at Art, motioning for them to come forward. They move through the dense crowd, ignoring the grumbling going on around them, and squeeze through a narrow gap between two of the tables to join the officials on the other side. Mickey almost steps on the flower bed and leans back against one of the tables to avoid doing it again, in case the whole thing is some kinda religious setup. It’s not actually flowers, he can tell now that he’s close enough, just hundreds of handmade paper blossoms of every color imaginable, covering the packed dirt floor and all the way up to the statue’s elbows. It’s in the likeness of a man, not looking that much older than Mickey himself.

”Hey, Art,” the woman greets Art warmly, wrapping her arms around Mickey’s companion in a firm embrace, ”long time.”

”Too long,” Art agrees, letting go of her and taking a step to the side so he can gesture towards Mickey, ”and I will ask you all about what’s going on with you in due time, but first… my friend here is looking for someone who used to crew the Nightingale, do you know if she’s docked?”

”The Nightingale?” Tali repeats and frowns when she glances quickly at Mickey and then looks back up at Art. ”No, she’s not been back since Liberation Day. Apparently she set down outside the power plant and last I heard about it she’s been promoted to diplomatic vessel, like an onsite negotiator with Zero One.”

Mickey scoffs, not realizing he’s done it until both Art and Tali turn to look at him.

”Just sayin’,” he starts, not exactly sure what he’s saying, ”Ian’s a lotta things, man, but a fucking diplomat ain’t one.”

”Ian?” Tali repeats, and this time she’s staring at Mickey like he’s outta focus or something. ”Are you Mickey?”

”Who wants to know?” Art says with a nervous frown, but shuts up when Mickey steps closer to them, scowling and waving his hand at Art to zip it.

”Yeah,” Mickey says, eyes firmly on this short, middle-aged lady who doesn’t seem to know ’Red’ the hacker, but _Ian_ , Mickey’s goddamned Ian, ”yeah, I’m Mickey. You know him? You seen him? He okay?”

Tali smiles a smile that can’t be bad, it really can’t, wide and genuine and fucking appreciative.

”Yes, yes, and yes to all three, love,” she says, nodding along to make sure he gets it, ”he landed with the Icarus some time ago and he works here now, curating the databases. I only know your name because he’s asked me to keep an eye out for you.”

”He’s been looking?” Mickey asks, kinda surprised he’s managing to sound so calm, his hands are fucking shaking and he might want to grab this nice lady by the collar and physically force her to speak faster.

”Oh yes,” Tali says and tilts her head to the side, ”he’s not much of a talker, huh? But I could tell he was upset about someone, catching him going through the death-list every time it synched with the power plant’s mainframe. It’s not a nice list, one does not browse through it just to pass time.”

Mickey feels just about ready to snap, and figures he must be asking the wrong questions. Straightforward is what he needs to be, fucking finally something he’s good at. 

”Where is he?”

”At home, I think,” Tali says with a smile, glancing down at a device on her wrist looking a lot, but not exactly, like a digital watch, ”but his shift starts in less than an hour, so you can wait here and he’ll come to you.”

Mickey looks around, at all the sadness and desperation and _hunger_ in the cave with its mass of lost refugees. He doesn’t know what’s gonna happen when he meets Ian again, but thanks to Tali he does know that he _will_ meet Ian again and that one to all of the following _will_ happen; kissing, talking, fighting, crying, fuckin’, interpretive dancing. None of which really requires an audience, except maybe the last one, which also happens to be the least likely one. But what the fuck does he know, he never knew he was trapped in a mind-prison by evil robots, he might be just as wrong about the dancing.

One thing he does know for goddamned sure is that he’s not waiting a whole hour if there’s somewhere he can run, and reduce it to minutes.

”Yeah, no, don’t think so,” he says and crosses his arms, raising his eyebrow preemptively, in case he’s gonna get any resistance, ”you tell me where he is and I’ll just go ahead and go there, thanks.”

”Oh, okay,” Tali looks confused, turning to Art for a second and then back to Mickey, ”just let me check, I don’t actually know-, Keros!”

”Yeah?” someone calls out from the other side of the statue.

”You know Ian, right?” Tali yells, Mickey flinching with each word and stepping back a little.

”Who?”

”I-an!” Tali enunciates, nodding when Art taps her shoulder and whispers ’Red’, like he’s a fucking stage prompter. ”Red! He was on the Nightingale, was he not?”

”Yeah!”

Mickey snaps, throwing up his hands and deciding to just walk around the monument and talk to the guy directly. Unfortunately he doesn’t get very far, the narrow space between the desks and the paper flowers occupied by several busy information clerks blocking the few feet between him and this Keros guy. Ignoring the gasps and angry shouts, Mickey walks across the flowers in four or five quick steps, piece of piss, and extends his warmest one-fingered salutation to his offended audience as he steps back on regular, unholy ground, grabbing hold of the one guy not currently facing his work.

”You know Ian?” he says, holding on to Keros’ shirt in a firm, but not terribly threatening grip as the guy nods. ”Can you tell me where he lives?”

”3759, section K, level 51,” Keros tells him, commendably quickly, ”do you need me to write it down?”

”Nope,” Mickey says, holding on to Keros’ shoulder and using it as support when he climbs up on the nearest desk and jumps down on the other side, not finding a natural opening fast enough, ”I’m good with numbers.”

”Are you Mickey?” Keros asks, as Mickey’s struggling to move past the mass of mildly annoyed people standing between him and the exit to this weird-ass cave he no longer needs to be in. He groans and turns around, staring at Keros’ pleased face, hitching his eyebrows high and giving the guy exactly ten seconds to say something interesting. Which at this point, or any point, could be pretty much fucking anything as long as it has to do with Ian. 

”Take the north exit,” Keros says, nodding in the direction opposite the one Mickey and Art came in, ”straight ahead, there’s a lift on your right when you get out of the tunnel, take it to level 36 and then switch to lift K, it’s faster, it’ll be another fifty meters to your left. Take _that_ lift to level 51, his door’s got a drawing of a bird on it, you can’t miss it. 3759.”

Mickey takes a second to go over the long string of information, then he nods at Keros and turns back to try and push through the crowd, instantly a little easier when he hears both Art and Tali shouting friendly encouragements for people to ’make way’ and to apparently ’do it for love’, like they’re in a goddamned romantic comedy. Whatever, it gets him through faster and maybe he is, maybe he fucking is.

Better romantic comedy than dystopian tragedy.

He’s thoroughly confused by the elevator when he gets to it, staring at the control panel until someone else steps through the doors and stretches past him to push a seemingly random button.

”What the fuck was wrong with good old numbers, huh?” he asks the silent lady as the doors close, gesturing at the braille nonsense on the panel. ”You know which one’s 36?”

She doesn’t say anything, but she stretches past him again to push another button and then nods helpfully at him once they stop, gesturing out the open doors when he hesitates.

The next elevator does have numbers in it, looking like someone wrote them in with a fucking pencil, everything smudged and faded but still almost legible. He finds 51 by process of elimination and before he knows it the doors are opening again and he steps out on another balcony. It all looks maddeningly the same, but this is where Ian’s supposed to be. Just a few doors down.

But of course, the helpful asshole in information didn’t specify left or right, so Mickey probably makes it a hundred yards in the wrong direction before he gives up and tries the other, walking back and past the elevator again.

He hears Ian before he even sees the door, walking up to it and listening to the muffled and painfully familiar laugh for a second, putting his fingertips to the heavy door and tracing the poorly drawn coal sketch of a swallow in flight, the black outline filled in with faded chalk. 

This is it.

The door is already open, so flattening his palm against the cold steel he pushes it all the way to the side, carefully stepping over the rounded, high threshold.

Ian isn’t alone in there, there’s laughter and talking as though from a whole group of people, some young, some old, some really fucking young, like can’t-even-talk-yet young. Ian’s voice is like a beacon, pulling Mickey through the narrow hallway until it opens up into a small, cosy room filled with light and people sitting around a large table and moving between it and a small kitchen off to the side of the entrance. There are kids everywhere, of every shape and color imaginable, maybe as many as thirty between the crowded table and the lady trailing a whole litter by the stove. But Mickey doesn’t see them, because in the middle is Ian, with his red fucking hair and easy smile, his big, awesome hands struggling with some kind of contraption, clamped between his knees where he sits at the head of the table. A fixed point in a mess of movement and happy noise.

”Come on, Ian,” the kid standing in front of him cheers him on, and even though he’s got his back turned Mickey knows, Mickey knows who it is like he knows himself, ”fix it, please!”

”Trying, buddy,” Ian huffs and looks up to smile at Yevgeny, but it slips off his face when his eyes trail further and land on Mickey, standing in the doorway like a fucking statue. ”Mick.”

Mickey can’t really tell if he’s happy or sad to see him, but realizes that he can’t waste time thinking about that when Yevgeny spins around and looks up at Mickey with his wide, blue eyes, his dark eyebrows in a perfect arch and his hair on end like he just woke up.

”Dad!” he yells and Mickey’s fucking knees give out, he slumps down on the floor the same time Yevgeny reaches him, throwing himself at Mickey like he knows he’ll be caught. Mickey doesn’t realize he’s crying until tears trickle down Yevgeny’s dark hair and he’s leaving strings of snot stuck to the kid’s forehead when he kisses every inch of his head he can reach, hugging him closer and shutting his eyes over the sensory revolution that is his son’s little arms clasping around his chest.

”My son,” he mumbles into the kid’s hair, breathing in, ”my son.”

”Don’t cry,” Yevgeny commands, struggling out of Mickey’s firm hold so he can lean back a little and frown up at his dad and grab at his wet cheeks, pulling them back to force out a wide, stale grin that quickly comes alive when Yevgeny laughs, ”I knew you would find us, Ian said you would and I believed him.”

”Yeah?” Mickey laughs, too, and his voice is wet and raspy and revealing, but he doesn’t give a fuck. ”Don’t doubt it kid, you’ve always been smarter than your old man, right?”

Yevgeny grins and pats Mickey on the cheek. ”Yep.”

”You little shit,” Mickey huffs and thinks he might be crying again, letting go of Yevgeny with one hand to quickly wipe it down his face and under his eyes, smiling as well as he can at his son, ”missed you like-, you have no idea. Like I lost a fucking limb… like I lost my heart, you know what I’m saying?”

”Home is where the heart is,” Yevgeny proudly recites something Mickey’s vaguely aware he might have told him once, in another life.

”Yeah, yeah,” Mickey agrees, gently brushing some of Yevgeny’s hair back from his forehead, ”that’s it. You’re my fuckin’ heart, kid, I’m sorry I’m late.”

Yevgeny looks confused but happy, shrugging and looking behind himself before he turns back to Mickey. ”You’re just in time for breakfast, dad.”

”Really?” Mickey doubts and has to struggle to screw his face up into a weak scowl. ”Looks to me like you guys started without me.”

”We didn’t know!” Yevgeny defends himself and giggles helplessly when Mickey tickles his ribs and grabs after him as he wiggles out of his grip and moves just out of reach, dodging Mickey’s hands and jumping back with a happy laugh when he gets too close. Mickey grins at him and then does the mistake of looking up at Ian, who’s stood up at some point but instead of moving closer like he should, he appears to have stepped back and is now busy angling himself away and none too discreetly wiping at his cheeks with the sleeves of his sweater.

He drops his hands when he notices Mickey looking and nods at him, sniffing loudly and shaking himself out of the moment.

”I gotta go,” he says, and it’s the last fucking thing Mickey thought he’d hear outta Ian’s mouth after all these months apart, ”shit, I gotta go to work.”

Mickey wants to get up off the floor to physically stop him, or at least do something, when Ian pats himself on the ass like he’s checking for his keys and wallet, like he would do when he was nervous and leaving when they were together, and walks up to Yevgeny to stand next to him and ruffle a hand through his hair, making the kid blink up at him expectantly.

He’s standing so close, Mickey thinks he could probably reach out and touch him, pull him in, if he really tried. But this isn’t what he had in mind for their reunion, not once did he imagine to lay eyes on Ian again only to be T-boned by something more important. Maybe Ian understands that Mickey needs to focus on Yevgeny first and he wants to give them time to reconnect properly, maybe Ian’s just been looking for Mickey for the kid’s sake.

Maybe Mickey doesn’t want to know if it’s really over between them, not yet.

”Help Rish with the dishes, okay?” Ian tells Yevgeny and bends down to press a quick kiss to his forehead, blatantly avoiding eye contact with Mickey as he straightens up again. ”Show your dad the ropes, I’ll be back before you know it.”

”Ian,” Mickey forces out a small attempt at keeping him around, not sure he can handle seeing Ian leave right now. But when Ian snaps his eyes to Mickey and he properly fucking looks at him, eyes wide and jaw set, Mickey can’t think of anything to say that comes even close to summing up everything he’s feeling. Mickey’s almost fucking relieved when Ian breaks away and bends his head as he brushes past him, escaping out the door.

”Fuck,” Mickey sighs and closes his eyes, willing himself to push the torrent of feelings and impulses aside when he opens them again and sees Yevgeny’s worried frown, forcing a carefree smile and pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, ”he not happy to see me, or something?”

Yevgeny smiles and shrugs, stepping back into Mickey’s arms like it’s the easiest thing in the world, burrowing his face into his chest and playing absently with the threads on Mickey’s hand-me-down sweater.

”You okay?” Mickey asks, because Yevgeny looks healthy and happy but he’s also been through hell and back, same as everyone else in this world. He feels the top of Yevgeny’s head press against his cheek when he tries to look down, and settles on holding him closer and slowly rubbing his back when his kid doesn’t answer. ”I love you so fucking much, never gonna leave you again, okay?”

”Okay,” Yevgeny mumbles into his shirt and Mickey feels the kid’s chest heave with a deep sigh before he sinks into Mickey’s embrace completely, feet giving up on standing on their own and his whole body sagging.

Mickey blinks away the tears threatening to well up again, and sniffing he looks up to see a whole bunch of strangers staring back at him. He thinks he somehow managed to forget about the roomful of people he stepped into, and now he doesn’t know what to do except scowl at the school of curious children staring at his emotionally exuberant reunion. 

”The hell’s going on here?” he complains, glancing over at the only other adult in the room, a motherly lady with a kid on her hip like it’s stuck there and a spatula still raised and ready even though her cooking seems long since forgotten. ”This some kinda lost boys bullshit?”

”No only boys,” the lady speaks up with a heavy, unfamiliar accent, and of course decides to be literal about it as she hitches up the kid on her hip, ”lost, yes.”

”And who the fuck are you?” Mickey frowns at her when she abruptly turns her back on him and resumes cooking.

”Hungry?” she asks, not bothering to look at him when she does. ”Breakfast.”

”Who the fuck is she?” Mickey tries his son instead, helping him back on his feet but not quite ready to let go of him completely, just yet. Yevgeny grins, because he always knew how to deal with his dad’s abrasive reactions to things and situations he doesn’t understand.

”It’s Rishan, dad,” the kid explains, like the name alone would be enough to catch Mickey up, rolling his eyes like a little shit when Mickey raises his eyebrows in confusion, ”she was on the Night- the night-gale, when I woke up from the dream.”

”You woke up on Ian’s ship?” Mickey asks, feeling his throat tighten at the thought of Yevgeny not having to wake up alone with the machines and tubes and needles, and maybe never having to set foot in one of those miserable camps.

”Yep,” Yevgeny nods, ”with Ian and Rish and Tang, where did you wake up, daddy?”

Mickey wets his lips and gives his curious son a small smile, gently touching the side of his face.

”Don’t worry about it,” he says, ”it doesn’t matter now.”

He still doesn’t know who Rishan is, but she chases away a couple of kids from the table and gets him to sit down with a bowl of something that most importantly _isn’t_ the white goop he’s been eating since he woke up, so she’s gaining a hell of a lot of points in his books, real quick. Yevgeny sits down next to him while he wolfs down his food, telling him about things the kid seems adamant about being basic knowledge for Mickey’s new life in Zion.

It takes a while for Mickey to catch up, but the more he listens and hums and nods, the clearer it becomes that Yevgeny’s whole world has become this weird steel rabbit hole of a home, and every story and piece of information he can come up with has to do with Ian, Rishan, or what Mickey quickly realizes must be names of the hoard of other kids running around the place. Yevgeny sounds happy, he sounds like he’s had a good time here, playing games and making friends, mindless of what’s going on around him just like a kid should. Mickey was afraid to find his son had been forced to grow up, but it would seem like Ian somehow has managed to make sure Yevgeny could remain small and carefree in the middle of everything going on.

When one of the kids run up to the table and starts pulling at Yevgeny’s sleeve, apparently urging him to come with him in whatever language she’s got, Yevgeny only throws Mickey a hopeful look and seems happy to run off when Mickey reluctantly nods at him. It’s good, it’s good that Yevgeny feels free to play and trusts in Mickey to still be here when he’s done. Mickey thinks his fucking heart might be breaking when he watches his kid run out the door, laughing, but it’s a good kinda heartbreak.

He clears the table and brings all the dishes over to the kitchen, awkwardly setting the pile down next to Rishan.

”You, eh-, want any help?” he offers, hoping that having something to do will make him feel less outta place in this home that isn’t his. Rishan looks up at him, eyes sweeping over him like she’s quietly measuring his worth. Then without a word she moves the toddler from one hip to the other and then holds the squirming thing out for him.

He hesitates for a second, but then his eagerness to have any kind of function within this odd household wins out over whatever bullshit reticence he might feel about handling someone else’s baby. He’d frankly been hoping to get to do the dishes or whatever, but carefully fitting his hands around the blubbering baby’s round tummy, he thinks he might not mind this unexpected task so much.

”Hey, tiny,” he mutters and awkwardly readjusts his grip on the kid when Rishan lets go and he tries to get a better hold of it, ”what’s up?”

The kid blows an impressive snot bubble that pops all over its chubby face, big brown eyes stuck to Mickey’s.

”Gross, kid,” Mickey huffs and uses the slightly too long sleeve of his sweater to wipe the baby’s face down, absently rubbing the dampened sleeve off on the side of his pants.

”Sana,” Rishan says without stopping what she’s doing, which seems to be chopping something for a big pot she’s got going, stewing on the stove, ”Rishan.”

”Sana, huh?” Mickey raises his eyebrows at the baby girl in his arms. ”Bet you think you’re real cute.”

He touches his fingertips to the too large plugs on her soft baby arms, and wishing not to think about someone this small and helpless going through the horrific unplugging process, he holds her closer and nudges his nose to her temple, pressing a quick kiss to the apple of her cheek. Somewhere out there, in a pile of corpses or a row of restless refugees, are this kid’s parents, worried and hopeful and probably thinking they’re never gonna see their daughter again.

Mickey’s found his son, _Mickey has found his son_ , he needs to repeat this fact a couple of times to even begin believing it.

”I’m Mickey,” he mumbles into the soft, warm baby skin, looking up at Rishan to see if the formal introduction warrants a pause in her cooking. It doesn’t.

”I know,” she says, and he thinks he can see a small smile pulling at the side of her face, ”welcome home, Mickey.”

Mickey huffs, and discreetly bouncing the baby he turns away from Rishan to lean back against the kitchen counter, making some space between them but still sticking around in her oddly homely presence.

”Don’t know about that,” he mutters to the baby, shaking his head at her when all she’s got to give is useless sweetness, and looks back at Rishan, ”you woke up on the Nightingale?”

Rishan nods. ”Uh-huh, yes, on ship.”

”Why?” Mickey asks, not caring much about if that’s insensitive or whatever, he doesn’t understand what’s happened to his kid and how he ended up here with Ian.

”I was in pod by Yevy,” she says and lets go of the knife for a second to hold out both her hands, demonstrating two pods next to each other just in case Mickey doesn’t get it, ”I wake up, it no open. I think must be… passed, think it too late. I never know this Nightingale, but I know, now… suddenly light and big ship and Ian, climbing up and jump.”

She gestures in the air in a motion all to familiar to Mickey, the memory of breaking through the membrane of his pod something he’s not likely to forget anytime soon.

”Like birth,” she says, touching a hand briefly to her heart, ”he save Yevy, save me though he no know me.”

”How is this even fucking possible?” Mickey frowns, wondering if something’s getting lost in translation, or if she’s playing some kinda trick on him, or if Ian actually, for real, found Yevgeny’s one pod amongst five billion others, and jumped onto it like some goddamned superhuman, pulling the kid out with his bare hands.

It sounds insane. It also sounds exactly like something Ian would do, even though Mickey has no idea on what he’s basing this particular character assessment. But Ian is strong and brave, after all, and has a hero complex the size of his whole, glorious body.

And even without all that, rushing to pull Yevgeny out of danger sounds like plain old paternal instincts to Mickey, something he would expect from Ian just because he knows how the guy cares for the kid.

”Very stubborn man, your man,” Rishan complains, snapping Mickey out of his thoughts, ”he say he no Yevy his father, but Yevy is son. Same same, stupid words, stupid worry.”

Mickey isn’t sure he understands any of that, but he still feels inclined to agree. He feels strangely exorcised of all his worry, like there’s nothing left to touch him now. Like he’s skirting around his final problem, and if Ian’s fallen out of love with him then there’s nothing he can do about that. He’ll just have to find a way to move on.

He leaves Rishan to it and walks baby Sana around Ian’s humble home, bouncing her gently until she falls asleep with her head on his collarbone, little umber fingers gripping the collar of his sweater. The main room probably used to look spacious and sparse, with a small kitchen nook in one corner and just the large table in the middle, right under the soft UV lights, but now it’s cluttered with makeshift beds lining the walls, stacked up during the day and probably filling up the whole room at night. There’s a small room on either side of it, iron doors leading him into one with three bunkbeds crammed in side by side, and into the other where there’s just one large bed. It’s not like it’s a luxury suite by any means, but he still wonders about the uneven arrangement and who it is that deserves the relative privacy of the second room.

There are no bathrooms, which seems like a bad idea for an apartment, but what the fuck does he know about architecture. He could go for a piss though, which makes the lack of an ensuite inconvenient at best.

He finds a crib he suspects belongs to Sana, and gently puts the sleeping baby down, making sure she’s not cold before he gives Rishan some bullshit excuse and steps out of the apartment and onto the balcony, focusing on his breathing and trying his best to convince himself that the air is fresh. In, deep breath, out, slowly. There’s gotta be a lot of circulation in this cave, air conditioning working around the clock to move the air around, purifying it. It’s probably better air down here than he ever breathed in the city, in the Matrix, never mind the infuriating fact that he never actually breathed inside the Matrix.

The tightness in his chest gives way when Yevgeny comes running down the balcony towards him, grabbing him by the hand and insisting he show Mickey around. They explore the public restrooms just down the balcony, just in time, and hand in hand they walk around the whole 51st level, Yevgeny talking the entire time; pointing out things and telling Mickey dubious facts and introducing him to more people than he’d ever managed to bother knowing, before. 

They help Rishan finish lunch when they get back, and Mickey has Yevgeny sit on his knee while they eat, holding on to the kid with one arm the whole time and maybe hiding behind him a little when the kids at the table talk circles around him. He thinks he can hear at least five different languages on rotation, whatever English he can pick out kinda getting lost in the cacophony of chit chat he doesn’t understand.

Yevgeny almost falls asleep with his face in his lunch, so Rishan takes his plate and ushers them both towards the room with only the one bed in it. He feels weird about not knowing whose bed he’s using but at the same time he’s not gonna risk a good thing by asking, laying Yevgeny down on it and walking around the bed to lie down next to him. One eye on the closed door, he holds on to his already sleeping son and finally gives in to the bone deep exhaustion draining through him and flushing out all the tension and anxiety he’s been feeling for so long, knocking him out cold within minutes.

He feels like he’s slept for days, or maybe only seconds, when he wakes up again in the exact same position, pulling himself a little closer to Yevgeny and nudging his nose into his hair, letting the soft tickle tease him back to consciousness. Mickey blinks his eyes open and it takes a slow moment for them to focus and make out the sideways view of an open door, and a familiar silhouette framed by the soft light from the other room.

”Hey,” Ian says, and his voice is like fucking honey, trickling down Mickey’s ear and all the way through him to pool in his gut, ”don’t wake up.”

”Too late,” Mickey mutters, sighing into Yevgeny’s hair and closing his eyes as he pushes the side of his face deeper into the pillow.

He thinks Ian might have left again when he hears the door close, but then he feels the bed dip and when he opens his eyes he’s staring right into Ian’s, big and steady and sorely missed.

”Where did you go?” Mickey asks, angling his face up a little so he can see Ian better and he’s no longer muzzled by the top of Yevgeny’s head.

”Here,” Ian whispers back, ”I didn’t want to go, but I-, I don’t know, Mickey. They gave me a choice and I chose the wrong thing. I was-, I didn’t know.”

”No,” Mickey frowns, ”don’t give a fuck about that anymore… where did you go now?”

Ian’s eyebrows slowly travel up his forehead and then bunch up in a confused frown.

”I-,” he starts, blown out pupils flitting from side to side as he seems to search Mickey’s eyes, ”I had a shift, wasn’t sure if you wanted me here, you know?”

Ian lets out a shaky breath when Mickey touches him, reaching out to trace his fingertips along his forearm and down his hand as Ian twists it around and fits their fingers together.

”Been looking for you,” Mickey says, because that’s the simple truth of how much nothing’s changed for him, ”since you disappeared, in there, out here.”

”I left you,” Ian states, like it’s hard for him to admit it, ”you’ve got every right to move on, Mick, I saw you… I know you moved on. You don’t gotta be with me just ’cause I’m here, or ’cause I was lucky enough to find Yevy and keep him safe for you. I’d have done that anyway, you don’t owe me for it, please-”

He’s tearing up, eyes closing over the wet shine in the glum room, the warm, yellow lights imbedded in the walls keeping it from falling into complete darkness. Mickey reinforces his hold on Ian’s hand and uses them both to playfully hit Ian right in the face, snapping him out of his stupid, anxious convictions. He yelps in surprise, and then he glares at Mickey which might not be the ideal result, but it’s still a lot fucking better than the sadness it’s replacing.

”You didn’t see shit,” Mickey insists, and his voice sounds strange and thick to his own ears, ”alright? None of that fucking matters now, Ian, just tell me you fucking love me and that you got me, and you _got me_.”

”I got you,” Ian repeats in a chuckle, the sound turning into something more like a wet sob when he screws his eyes closed and brings Mickey’s hand up to his lips, kissing his knuckles gently, pressing his lips to the blank spaces where his letters used to be.

Mickey watches him let go and get up, and he lies stock still while Ian moves out of sight, and he holds his breath until he feels the mattress dip again, but behind him this time. He turns his head up, and twisting his upper body he feels his shoulder blades press into the bed when Ian melts down on top of him, arms burrowing under him and clinging on to his shoulders, his face disappearing out of sight as it sinks into the crook of his neck.

Clasping his arms around him, Mickey digs his fingers into the hair on the back of Ian’s neck, the slight curls longer and more unkempt than he ever knew them to be inside the Matrix.

”I love you,” Ian tells him, breath warm over the skin behind his ear, ”I love you so fucking much.”

”Fuck,” Mickey sighs and puts a hand to Ian’s cheek, guiding him up until they’re face to face, ”missed you.”

Mickey’s mouth falls open the moment their lips touch, noses nudging and rubbing together when Ian angles his face just that little bit to the side and falls even closer, tongues melding and Ian’s teeth grazing over Mickey’s bottom lip when he pulls back for a second only to angle the other way and smile when Mickey arches off the bed to follow the warmth of his mouth.

They sink back down together, Ian’s broad shoulders firm and familiar under Mickey’s searching hands, covering every known surface before they run down the plugs along his spine and up towards his neck to feel around the large headjack Mickey kinda purposefully avoided before, not sure how it would feel to touch Ian that way and be reminded of what they are now, what they’ve become since they last saw each other. 

It feels fucking amazing.

”I love you,” he says it back, just in case it wasn’t already abundantly fucking clear, muttering the words at first opportunity as Ian nips at his top lip and nudges his nose into his cheek, grinning wide when he comes back down for more.

Mickey knows why he has to do it, but it’s still immensely disappointing when Ian breaks the kiss and pulls back, keeping their faces close for a few moments while he brackets Mickey’s with his hands and, caressing his cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, stares into Mickey’s eyes like he’s searching for gold. He makes a content noise after a while and carefully picks up his upper body to let Mickey turn back on his side and then quickly follows, plastering himself along Mickey’s back from neck to chest, to hips to knees to ankles. He runs his hand down Mickey’s arm, and tangling their fingers again he carefully lays their arms back over Yevgeny so they’re both holding on to the poor kid, still miraculously and peacefully asleep.

”The fuck are you doing here with all these kids?” Mickey asks and smiles when he feels Ian laugh breathlessly against his neck.

”Shit,” Ian huffs, ”I don’t know, I had the space so I kept saying they could stay with me whenever one of these ’unaccompanied minors’ didn’t have somewhere to go, Rish put her foot down when we reached thirty-five, pointin’ out that there’s not a square foot of space left to put them in at night.”

”But you got this whole cushy room to yourself?” Mickey doesn’t blame Ian for it, and anyway it works out very well in Mickey’s favor, but he’s still curious. It seems like a kinda un-Ian thing to do, considering everything else he’s doing here.

”Yeah,” Ian admits, jostling them both when he shrugs, ”me and Yevgeny.”

Mickey untangles their hands to bring his up and readjust the covers, trying to pull them up closer to Yevgeny’s chin even while he and Ian are weighting the blankets down and making it difficult.

”Did you really jump off a hovercraft to get him out of his pod?” Mickey asks, his lips pulling up in a crooked smile when Ian scoffs into his neck. ”And don’t gimme any of that false modesty, Gallagher, tell me the truth.”

”I was searching for you when I found his pod,” Ian tells him with a decidedly modest shrug, ”I knew where he was, I did what I had to do.”

”In what fucking world,” Mickey huffs out in a quiet laugh, ”is that not textbook fucking false modesty?”

”We were on broadcast level,” Ian reluctantly elaborates, and he sounds like he’s smiling for a second before he sighs, ”when we saw the Matrix crashing, didn’t know what else to do than go up there and get him. Couldn’t fucking stand the idea of him lost in that place. He-, he was stuck when I finally got to him.”

Ian stops sounding like he’d rather be talking about something else, reaching out to touch his fingertips to Mickey’s wrist, trailing up and down the side of his forearm, their hands rising and falling with Yevgeny’s steady breaths.

”Fuck, Mick,” he sighs, ”he was just lying in there, thought I was too late.” 

”Is he-,” Mickey starts, carefully scratching at the coarse fabric of the blankets and frowning at how nervous he sounds, ”is he alright?”

”Yeah,” Ian breathes out, kissing his neck gently, ”yeah, Mick, he’s good. He had really bad nightmares the first few weeks and it was scaring the others, he didn’t want to see anyone but me when he woke up, he would scream and lash out, hitting and kicking. I’m just happy he remembered me, you know? And it got better, hasn’t had a bad dream in weeks, now.”

”And you?” Mickey feels stupid for hesitating, but he isn’t sure he wants to know the answer. ”You okay?”

”Well,” Ian hums, smiling against the skin on Mickey’s neck, still wet from his soft kisses, ”am now.”

”Jesus, fuck,” Mickey huffs and shrugs his shoulder when Ian laughs and purposefully tickles him with his stubbled chin, ”you know what I mean.”

Ian sighs and lies down on the pillow, his absence like a cold breeze over the back of Mickey’s neck even while Ian moves his hand off Yevgeny to hug it around Mickey’s middle, absently rubbing it over his stomach and up to rest on his chest.

”Left because I thought you’d be better off without me,” he starts explaining, blindly reaching up and patting his fingertips over Mickey’s lips, obviously knowing him well enough to realize he’s two seconds away from calling him an idiot, ”they didn’t tell me much when they gave me the offer to be unplugged, but they said I’d feel… sane. Whole, you know? That it wouldn’t go away, but that I’d be able to manage it-, manage myself better.”

”Do you?” Mickey asks, lips moving against the press of Ian’s fingers.

”Still got like, a chemical imbalance in my brain and the ups and downs of that,” Ian caveats before he answers, ”but yeah, the paranoia and delusions and the really scary shit was triggered in a whole different way by being plugged in. I take one pill a day out here and I feel alright, can you believe it? Still-”

He huffs, his breath warm over Mickey’s headjack and his fingertips absently tracing Mickey’s bottom lip. 

”Been spending all my time tryna figure out a way to get back,” he admits, ”knew right away I made the wrong choice.”

”So indecisive,” Mickey sighs and grins when Ian tries to playfully shove his face into the pillow to get him to shut up, ”you’re a fucking mess.”

Ian lets go of his face and seems to relax behind him, breathing calmly against his neck and his fingers playing with the threadbare neckline of Mickey’s sweater.

”You okay?” Ian asks after a long silence, his voice low and hesitant.

”Fucking fine,” Mickey lies before he changes his mind, ”gonna be fucking fine, you don’t gotta worry about me, Ian.”

”Didn’t want this for you,” Ian whispers, ”wanted to see you again, but not like this.”

”You saved my kid’s life,” Mickey mutters back and closes his eyes, clasping his hand over Ian’s and hugging it to his chest, ”don’t care where the fuck we are, just don’t fucking leave me again, alright?”

Ian doesn’t answer, still and quiet behind Mickey’s back until Mickey thinks he might have fallen asleep. But then he speaks again, his voice carefully level and measured.

”My friend tells me they’re only days away from restoring the Matrix’ mainframe,” he says, ”soon they’re gonna launch a re-assimilation program to, you know, plug people back in… if they want.”

Mickey swallows and closes his eyes, slowly rubbing his hand over the back of Ian’s to remind himself of that he’s really there. Mickey would fucking love to go back; to his home, to fresh air and clear skies, to real food and fucking beers and cigarettes, to his family being safe. But he never liked lying to himself when he was a teenager and in the closet and he’s pretty sure he’s not gonna like lying to himself now either, even if he won’t know he’s doing it once the new program kicks in.

”Not now,” he says, ”can we deal with that shit later?”

”Whatever you want, Mick,” Ian promises him stupidly, ”whatever you want and I’ll do it.”

 

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop, only one left. Sorry I'm late, I'm hoping the last one will follow sometime this week but I honestly don't know. Thank you for sticking with me <3


	12. Day 75, year unknown

_._

 

 

 

 

 

_Wake.. from your sleep_

_The drying of your tears_

_Today we escape_

  


_we escape_

 

 

_._

Day 75, year unknown

 

”Wake up.”

Mickey feels very far away, suspended in a mass of _nothing_ pressing around his every molecule. The words are muddled and distorted when they reach him, as though under water and through walls and wires, the sound waves shaking his whole narrowed down world like jelly.

”Wake up,” the words tune in and become a whisper at the end of a string, a tin can tied to each end, ”daddy, wake up!”

Mickey jerks awake and grunts when he blinks over the bleary sight of Yevgeny’s smiling face. Sighing he covers his eyes with a heavy hand and tries to burrow himself down into the mattress.

”Off,” he mutters, ”with his head.”

Yevgeny squeals, the sound followed by the patter of his naked feet over the floor as he runs out of the room. Mickey parts his fingers just enough to peek out between them, only to see the heavy steel door left wide open and the bright lights and sounds from the living room flooding into their sanctum sanctorum. 

Pushing his face all the way into his pillow he tries to turn around without moving more than strictly necessary, shuffling shoulders and hips until he’s flat on his stomach and he can stretch out his arms above his head, shoving them in under the pillow. The warm body next to him moves to accommodate him, and Mickey immediately retracts his arms so he can blindly inch himself closer to it. Finding one of Ian’s arms, Mickey lifts it up just enough to squeeze himself under it, pleased when Ian takes the hint and rolls himself closer as Mickey settles in, draping his arm over Mickey’s back and fitting the rest of himself along his body, starting with his cheek on top of Mickey’s head, and ending with him absently tangling their feet.

”Morning,” he mumbles into Mickey’s hair, his breath warm and welcome as it tingles down his scalp.

”Don’t remind me,” Mickey mutters and sighs, readjusting his head a little only to realize he’s got his face pressed into Ian’s neck. It’s not a half-bad place to be, falling back asleep, Ian’s steady breathing surrounding him entirely.

He’s right there on the edge, waiting for the right second to tip over, when a far away siren cuts through his comforts once again.

”Wake uuuuuup!” Yevgeny’s voice climbs in both pitch and volume as he presumably runs back into their room, and sure enough, the sound only stops when the mattress dips and something lands heavily against Mickey’s back.

”I think your son,” Ian mutters, ”wants you to wake up.”

”I have no son,” Mickey decides, his lips moving against Ian’s soft, warm skin and smiling when he feels a shudder run though him, ”you take him.”

”Mom says you need to wake up,” Yevgeny rightfully ignores his dad’s sleepy disownment, ”she says Ian told her to tell me to-”

Mickey feels the heavy arm on his back lift away the same moment Yevgeny’s voice is muffled into a fit of giggles.

”Whose child is this?” Ian laments, jostling Mickey a little more than really acceptable when he presumably struggles with Yevgeny behind his back. ”Someone call the authorities.”

”I’m surrounded by traitors,” Mickey grumbles and tries to burrow deeper into the nice space between the pillow and Ian’s neck, only to feel the vibrations of Ian’s low laughter against the side of his face. He kinda never wants to fall asleep again, now.

”We’ve only got your best at heart,” Ian basically admits his guilt, along with his obviously totalitarian views of their relationship, his arm dropping back down across Mickey’s shoulders at the same time Yevgeny’s slight weight slumps back against him.

”Bullshit,” Mickey pontificates, unfolding an arm from under himself to wrap it around Ian, fingers absently tracing the plugs along his spine through his shirt, ”gonna have to try a lot fucking harder than empty promises like that, man.”

”How about this?”

Mickey scoffs when Ian dips his head to nudge Mickey’s face into view with his own. It fucking tickles more than anything and grinning helplessly he allows Ian to gently turn him on his back, his head sinking into the pillow with the press of Ian’s lips to the smoothed out crease down his forehead, the bridge of his nose, under his eye.

”C’mere,” Mickey encourages him and fisting his fingers into the back of Ian’s shirt he pulls him down until they are properly aligned and Ian doesn’t have to bend his neck to kiss him.

”Nooo,” Yevgeny complains and rolls away on the bed, ”not this! I’m so hungry!”

Ian purses his lips and they rub lightly against Mickey’s as he shakes his head. Then he grins and disappears, slipping out of Mickey’s sleep-heavy arms to sit up and swing his legs over the edge, the mattress dipping and jostling Mickey when he stands. Mickey turns his head to the side and raises his eyebrows at his son, stretched out next to him and looking unduly fucking pleased.

”You hungry, kiddo?” Ian asks as he rounds the bed and walks back into Mickey’s view. Yevgeny nods emphatically, hands together and shoulders drawn in anticipation when he sees Ian’s wicked grin. ”Me too!”

”No, don’t eat me!” Yevgeny laughs as Ian swoops down to grab him and pick him up, making gnawing noises as he pretends to bite at the kid’s ribs before dropping him back on the bed, a happy ’oof’ finding its way in between the giggles.

”Fuck,” Mickey groans and halfheartedly tries to kick at Ian’s hip when the guy continues to torture their kid, blowing fart noises into his belly until Yevgeny’s laughing himself red in the face. ”Get the fuck out, I’m tryna sleep here.”

Ian huffs out a laugh when Mickey manages to shove him out of balance and Mickey more or less expects him to jump _him_ next, his loving, innocent boyfriend, but he doesn’t. But he _does_ throw a pillow in his face though, before he pulls Yevgeny out of bed and Mickey hears them leave the room.

Mickey manages maybe two lazy minutes on his own before he heaves himself out of the bed and follows, closing his eyes and rubbing two fingers over the bridge of his nose as he steps over the high threshold and into their lively morning routine. 

Their little orphanage has been reduced to five, since Mickey got there. For a while it was that each kid leaving had another one taking its place, but once the Matrix came back up and they were able to slowly match the refugee lists to actual records from inside the code, stuff really started happening. They’re still holding out for something coming up, but at this point Mickey’s already accepted the fact that he’s stuck coparenting half a dozen kids until further notice, maybe indefinitely. 

He doesn’t really mind so much, or at all. They’re alright kids, most of the time. Maybe just not so much in the mornings.

”Alright, alright, Jesus,” he mutters and walks towards the table, stopping only to stoop down and pick up Sana from the floor, ”settle down, Rugrats.”

”I can take her,” Svetlana tries to ambush him from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel and ready to abandon Ian by the stove. 

”I got it,” Mickey quickly tells her and moves Sana from one arm to the other, keeping one free to force it in between Zahid and Jess once he reaches the table, prying the small boy out of the strong girl’s technically impressive headlock, ”ey, cut it out, fuck’s sake.”

”Bad word!” Jess hollers and lets go of her victim, who rocks back in his chair and holds on to his head like he’s afraid it might fall off.

”Yeah, whatcha gonna do about it, short stuff?” Mickey teases her as he walks around her back and sits down at the head of the table. Jess is seven years and four feet of trouble, no opportunity to cause some too big or too small to pass by. He really fucking likes her.

”I might… tell Ian,” she threatens him, cool as ice, narrowing her eyes at him like she’s measuring the effect of her words.

”Oh no,” Mickey deadpans, absently picking up the simple toy car on the table and bringing it in to Sana’s outstretched hands, and by the way she bounces excitedly on his thigh he assumes she’s already trying to eat it, ”this one’s finally figured out my weakness. Hey-, babe, you hearin’ this?”

Mickey puts a hand over Sana’s round belly and holds her a little closer to keep her steady as he looks over his shoulder at Ian, coming towards them with a large pot in his hands, handles wrapped up in a threadbare towel. Ian grins and raises his eyebrows at them, only momentarily distracted by Svetlana walking behind him towards the other room and calling out for Yevgeny, who must have snuck back there to try and persuade Rishan to get up. She’s been on bedrest for a couple of days now.

”What’s that?” Ian’s smiling when he gets to the table, pulling everyone’s suddenly sombre attention to him as he sets the pot down.

”Jess got something to tell you,” Mickey prompts, smirking at Jess’ stubborn pout, her little chin sticking out as she turns to Ian and hands him her empty plate.

”Ian,” she starts sweetly, waiting for Ian’s amused ’what?’, ”Mickey said a bad word, can you please tell him off?”

”Nope,” he says, handing her plate back with a big glob of white porridge and barely holding back his fond smile when her sweetness twists into outrage.

”Why not?” she demands, setting down the plate with a little too much force, her spoon clattering next to it. ”You tell me off!”

”’Cause Mickey’s an adult and can swear all he likes, peanut,” Ian explains calmly as he accepts Zahid’s plate next, ”and you’re a kid and gotta do what we tell you, tough luck.”

Jess slumps back in her seat with a loud groan, crossing her little arms.

”And don’t be a snitch, Jess,” Ian adds, quickly dishing out porridge to Ed and Tove on either side of him without picking up their plates, throwing Jess a playfully admonishing look in between, ”no one likes a snitch.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but then scoots forward on her seat and picks up her spoon, leaning an elbow on the table as she starts digging in. She’s short-tempered and stubborn as fuck, but she usually listens and is just as quick to please as she is to argue, most of the time. 

Mickey grins at Ian and secures his grip on the baby, busy mouthing and drooling all over his thumb, as he leans forward to hold out his plate and meet Ian half way.

”Think I should be punished, anyway,” Mickey suggests, Jess perking up in her seat and smiling brilliantly when Mickey wiggles his eyebrows at his boyfriend, way over her head, ”how about some light spanking?”

Ian glares at him, but there’s no mistaking the amused smirk hiding behind his pursed lips.

”Come on, baby, let baba sleep,” Svetlana mutters, drawing the attention of the table to her as she ushers Yevgeny out of the bedroom the two of them have been sharing with Rishan ever since their ranks started whittling down to more manageable numbers. Rishan tried to hide it, but she took it hard when the kids started leaving. Even though they never were supposed to stay and leaving was a good thing, because leaving meant that they could be reunited with their families, it was like the energy started draining out of her with each one packing up and shipping out.

Ian says he thinks she might feel worried that _she’ll_ have to leave, too, at some point, even though neither Ian or Mickey, or Svetlana for all they know, are in any hurry to see her go. In fact, they kinda agree that it would feel really natural for her to stay, as long as she wants to stay. Their quarters are tight, sure, but Mickey grew up this way, same as Ian did, and he’s not hesitant to admit he prefers the chaos of a big family to the peace and quiet of the soul crushing solitude he had to endure the first month or so in this new, unfriendly world.

Besides, he never imagined siblings for his kid, and maybe the Rugrats won’t be _that_ exactly, but maybe they could be something like it. He never imagined it, but maybe he really fucking would have liked it. The right kids, at the right time, with the right guy.

’Right’ is _now_ , and Mickey thinks that ’family’ comes in all shapes. It’s just a decision, and not a very hard one to make.

He watches Ian plate up a nice big serving for Yevgeny as the kid sits down at the table with his mother, smiling bravely when Ian ruffles his hair and drops a quick kiss to his head as he walks past him.

”Sit the fuck down,” Mickey grumbles, happy to see Ian forego a couple of empty seats to move all the way around the table and take the one right next to him, ignoring Mickey completely to coo at the baby on his lap, ”fuckin’ matron, c’mere.”

Ian looks up at him, eyes blank for a second like Mickey’s not gonna get his way. But then he quirks a small smile and sits up, leaning in close and nudging their lips together in a soft, quick kiss. It’s not popular, the whole table groaning and Svetlana launching into a rant about new household rules, prohibiting any kind of affection at the table, or in the kitchen, or even behind closed doors if anyone else happens to be awake in the next room.

”Gotta find her someone willin’ to sit on her face, man, shut her up if nothing else,” Mickey mutters under his breath as Ian pulls away, looking good enough to eat with his eyes sparkling and mouth wicked, ”three weeks and she’s on my last fucking nerve already.”

”Be nice,” Ian huffs, because he’s a massive hypocrite who’s really just as sick of Svetlana’s uncanny ability to cockblock them any time they get two minutes to themselves to try and get somewhere, ”it’s not her fault Nika’s not responding to her hail, really gotta sting after all those years they were together.”

”Bitch always was a flake, no surprises there,” Mickey shrugs and pushes his plate away when Sana tries to shove her chubby little hands into his breakfast, ”don’t see why that means I gotta walk around with a pair of Smurfs for balls, twenty-four seven.”

Ian smirks and shrugs one shoulder, dishing up some porridge for himself and immediately digging in, his voice still discreetly low as he speaks around his steady chewing.

”Took care of you last night, didn’t I?” he supplies weakly, flitting his eyes around the table for a second to make sure they’re still speaking in relative confidence, before raising a suggestive eyebrow at Mickey. The kids are all busy listening to Ed telling them and Svetlana about a new game he’s made up, his lacking English slowing down his speech when he talks to adults in a way it never does when only speaking to the other kids, when his German and English start mixing and somehow still making sense to his friends.

”Sure,” Mickey agrees when Ian almost looks a little hurt at the suggestion that he hadn’t, ”but ’clothes on, lie still and keep quiet’ probably doesn’t even make my top twenty favorite positions, I mean… it works, I’ll give you that, but what about _romance_ , huh?”

He affects a kind of pained frown when Ian looks a little surprised.

”Is romance dead?” Mickey asks the ceiling, but dips his head back down and grins when Ian’s face breaks out in a wide smile.

”I’ll see about getting the room locked and soundproofed,” Ian promises and shovels in another spoonful of porridge, ”how’s that for romance?”

”Hallelujah, it’s alive,” Mickey deadpans and leans down a little so he can catch Sana’s eye, rearranging her to sit sideways on his knee and letting her grab on to his fingers when he holds up his hand, palm facing towards her, ”high five?”

The baby tries to eat his fingers.

”Yeah,” he mutters and avoids her sticky mouth by bringing his hand down to tickle her belly, ”guess not.”

This one might need some work.

”Here,” Ian says and pushing back his emptied plate he reaches out for the baby, lifting her over to sit on his own knee when Mickey releases her, ”eat.”

Mickey pulls his chair closer to the table and his plate back closer to himself, eating the white nutritious goop that he thought he’d be hating by now but somewhere along the line got strangely accustomed to, as he’s got one ear on the wild conversations crossing paths over the table, and two sideways eyes on Ian whenever he stops actively trying to look away. 

”I will take kids to temple,” Svetlana suddenly decides to announce, Mickey frowning and tearing his eyes off Ian to glare at her across the table, ”after breakfast.”

”What? Why?” Mickey asks, picking up his eyebrows when his ex-wife gives him a well familiar look of tired derision. ”Thought we said none of that post-apocalyptic hippie cult bullshit, Jesus, where’s this coming from?”

”It’s not for a sermon,” Ian placates him and Mickey feels like he’s two pieces short of a whole puzzle when he looks back at his boyfriend and sees him wearing that cocksure little smile that mostly, but not always, tends to bode really well for Mickey.

”What did you do?” Mickey complains, maybe only slightly amused underneath his apprehensive scowl when Ian laughs.

”Nothing,” Ian clearly lies, ”they’ve got a kinda carnival thing set up in temple for a couple of days, thought the kids might wanna go.”

”Theatre and activities,” Svetlana says as she gets up and starts clearing the table, ”free food and lots of little friends to play with, I take them for whole day and Carrot Boy owes me big favor, win win win.”

Mickey’s eyes widen when she gestures her hand, and the short stack of plates in it, to one by one indicate herself, Ian and then Mickey as she counts out her imagined hat-trick.

”How’s it a win for me?” he asks, not terribly reassured when Svetlana’s eyes dip in that way she probably thinks is seductive.

”Oh, it will be,” she smirks and takes the plates to the kitchen nook, leaving Mickey to turn to Ian with his eyebrows carefully arched in curiosity. 

”Might have done _something_ ,” Ian admits with an easy smile, turning with Mickey to look across the room when the comms crackle and spark to life in the corner, ”sounds like long wave.”

He gets up and passes Sana on to his left, Zahid not looking bothered at all to suddenly find himself with two armfuls of baby. 

”You should eat,” Ian tells Mickey before he walks away, pointing at his still half full plate, ”got the whole day off, I’ve got shit planned.”

Mickey sits forward and nods over at his kid, who’s grinning from ear to ear.

”You know anything about this, Judas?” he asks, pointing at Yevgeny with his full spoon before he shovels it into his mouth.

”Dad,” Yevgeny insists, his voice lowered like he thinks Ian can’t still hear him, ”it’s your versary!”

”My what?” Mickey frowns, looking to Jess when she groans.

”It’s an-ni-versary, Yevy,” she corrects him, but her annoyed scowl softens into something much kinder when Yevgeny only shoots her a toothy grin, ”and it’s supposed to be a surprise.”

”It’s fine,” Mickey shrugs and nods at his son while he pushes away from the table, the legs of his chair scraping over the floor, ”I hate surprises.”

He smirks at Yevgeny’s happy grin and walks over to the comms and Ian, sitting hunched over on a stool and tapping furiously at a keyboard, a firm line down his forehead marking his concentration when Mickey comes up by his side and puts a hand to his shoulder.

”Hey, Martha,” he mutters, stooping down a little to get his lips close to Ian’s ear, ”what’s this bullshit I’m hearin’ about an anniversary?”

Mickey sees his crooked smile by the reflection in the black screens, the green text still typing out code when Ian’s fingers stop moving.

”Did some calculations,” he says, eyes still on the monitors as he speaks, ”and today is exactly three hundred and sixty-five days since the last December thirty-first.”

”It’s New Year’s Eve?” Mickey asks and straightens up, hand still on Ian’s shoulder as he tries to work out the math. He hasn’t thought about the date since he made it to Zion, since he stopped counting the days.

”Yeah,” Ian turns his head to smile up at him for a second, before once again facing the monitors, ”I dragged you to Bonnie’s disaster of a party, remember? Wanted to tell you the whole night how fucking in love with you I was, already.”

”So you just decided to make fucking New Year’s Eve our anniversary date?” Mickey complains, because his heart is fucking soaring at this unexpected confession and he doesn’t trust himself to do anything but tease right now. ”Not sure how I feel about that, besides it not being at all true. We’d been dating for a whole month at that point, in case you forgot.”

”Yeah, well,” Ian shrugs, ”kinda missed December fifth, didn’t I? So I’m tryna cover my ass and distract you by telling you about how hopelessly, stupidly gone I was on you, exactly one year ago today.”

Mickey scoffs and bites his lip over a wide smile, absolutely refusing to admit how much it’s working.

”One year,” he says, his hand absently moving up Ian’s neck, fingers slowly circling his headjack and scratching into his hair, ”that all?”

Ian huffs and tries to shake Mickey’s hand off his head, only causing him to really dig his fingers in there, clutching on to the red locks and firmly pulling his head back until Ian’s big, grey eyes are blinking up at him.

”Feels longer,” Mickey mutters and grins when Ian’s lips fall open, the tip of his tongue darting out to wet them as they quirk up in a lopsided smirk.

”You gonna be like this the whole day?” he asks, his eyelids fluttering closed and his sentence cutting off when Mickey moves down and shuts him up, fitting his lips over his Cupid’s bow and nudging his nose into the side of his chin when Ian pushes up against him, lips firm and slick. 

”’Cause that’s fine,” Ian mumbles into his mouth, voice at the back of his throat as every part of him kinda runs soft under Mickey’s touch, ”just fine.”

_”This is the Aramis, calling home,”_ a tinny voice cuts through the comms and interrupts their sappy moment, _”please stop snogging and come in, I can hear you all the way from the surface.”_

”Hey Art,” Ian hums but doesn’t move out of the firm grip Mickey’s got on his face, judging by his content smile quite happy to wait Mickey out until he’s ready to let go.

_”Ian,”_ Art greets him, _”good to talk to you again. And Mickey, I hope? Or is this call gonna end in heartbreak for me?”_

”Yo,” Mickey announces himself, kinda hugging his arms around Ian’s head for a second before letting go and pulling a chair over from the side of the desk to get properly situated in front of the mic, right next to Ian, ”hey Art, what’s up?”

_”Landed last night,”_ Art tells them, his voice almost drowning in collateral noise for a second and then returning full force, _”stabilizer’s on the fritz again, you’ve got your work cut out for you when you decide to ship out.”_

Mickey sighs when he feels Ian’s hard stare bore into the side of his face.

” _If_ ,” he says and glances at Ian, only to see that it’s much worse than he thought; lips in a thin line and eyes wide under his furrowed brows, Ian looks scared, ” _if_ I ship out.”

_”A minute in and I’ve already stepped in it, please resume the snogging and ignore me.”_

”You’re thinking of shipping out?” Ian asks.

_”Not on any long tours,”_ Art immediately forgets about his request to be ignored, _”we’re a freight vessel now, Ian, it’s just day trips. Maybe weeks, at most.”_

”You know it doesn’t work that way,” Ian mutters and turns away from Mickey to frown at the mic instead, ”a day turns into a week, a week turns into a month.”

Mickey feels his throat working around different things he wants to say, mouth falling slack but nothing coming out. He’s afraid that if he tries to say _anything_ right now, what’s gonna win out is anger; covering for his fears of losing what he’s fought so hard to find again, covering for the cabin fever he’s got lurking just around the corner of his mind. Mickey knows he ought to be content with what he’s got, a home with his kid and his man, all he ever wanted. He feels guilty for thinking it’s not enough, now, he feels angry with Ian for not noticing that it’s not enough.

He thinks he’s probably just angry with himself, and that it’s not fair to take any of that out on Ian.

They’ve been through a lot, together and apart, and their joint decision to stay in Zion was the right one to make. But that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy at all times. 

Mickey puts a hand on Ian’s knee, feeling all that flaring, defensive anger ebb away when Ian grasps his long fingers around it and pulls in a deep breath, obviously also telling himself to calm the fuck down.

”Gotta do _something_ , going crazy like this,” Mickey mutters and huffs when Ian squeezes his hand and looks at him, an eyebrow quirked in surprise, ”yeah, I know, who’d have thought, huh?”

”This stay at home dad thing not working out for you?” Ian asks, his tone light but that slight frown still there and absolutely serious.

”Got no issues herding the Rugrats around, you know that,” Mickey says, keeping his voice down just in case, ”but when you fuck off to work it’s like I’m married to my bitch ex-wife again, it’s not exactly a dream of mine, you know?”

Ian makes a face. ”I’m sorry.”

”Not your fault,” Mickey rolls his eyes at him, happy to know Art can’t see him as he moves his thumb to caress the side of Ian’s hand. He would’ve preferred to have this conversation in private, and he knows Ian feels the same way.

_”Well, isn’t this awkward,”_ Art hums, sounding really pleased.

Squeezing Mickey’s hand again, Ian leans in closer to the mic.

”I… just got him back,” he tells Art, wincing at the microphone and uncomfortably clearing his throat, ”give me like-, a week to be unreasonable about this shit?”

_”You can have two!”_ Art offers generously, completely missing the finer nuances of Ian more or less obviously using him as a way to indirectly tell Mickey what he needs. _”You can pretty much rely on these types of runs getting delayed.”_

Mickey groans and puts his face in his free hand, smiling into it when he hears Ian’s quiet laughter.

”Thanks, Art,” Ian chuckles, ”that’s very helpful.”

_”I try,”_ Art humbly admits, before changing speed, _”hey! But this was not why I called, I’ve got someone here for you.”_

_”Hey, little brother,”_ Lip’s voice comes through the line, _”you good?”_

”All good here,” Ian smiles, they’ve been on regular communications with Lip since he popped up on a list for camp four-two a few weeks back, but they haven’t seen him yet as he’s already managed to make himself indispensable in the early efforts to resettle the surface, ”did they arrive yet?”

_”Last week,”_ Lip confirms, _”Liam’s a little shook up still, but you know Fi and Debs, they’re already bossing people around, they’re uh-, natural born managers.”_

Ian chuckles, his grip on Mickey’s hand tightening just a little. ”And Carl?”

_”He’s bored out of his mind,”_ Carl’s voice joins in, _”hey Ian, they tell me I can’t even shoot at any of these squid-looking machine motherfuckers flying around, what’s up with that?”_

_”Carl should probably go live with you guys,”_ Lip deadpans, and sounds like he’s getting punched in the shoulder for it.

Glancing at the side of Ian’s face, Mickey can see the tears shining in his eyes, just shy of falling. They’ve had word of all of Ian’s siblings being safe, as well as Mandy and Iggy, Mickey not at all surprised that there’s no trace of their older brothers. If he really wanted to see them, for some reason he can’t think of right now, he’d probably just have to follow the trail of illegal drugs being smuggled out of Zion, and there’d they be. Doing what they’ve always done. 

It’s different with the Gallagher siblings, Mickey knows his boyfriend is silently dying to see them again. Zion is still closed for those without the proper permits, but once the settlements on surface level start to take shape, they expect this to change.

”Always got room for you here, Carl,” Ian tells his kid brother, ”can probably wrangle you a permit if you want to make the trip.”

_”Thanks, Ian,”_ Carl says, sounding like he never expected anything less out of his big brother, _”but I’m good here, someone’s gotta keep these guys in check.”_

Ian nods, looking a little dejected. His whole family are settling on the surface, this much is clear, and it’s getting clearer every time he talks to them that they’ve got no great qualms about doing so without him. Ian’s always been fiercely independent of everyone, ever since he was fourteen and able to get a job of his own and support himself, but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t sting a little whenever he’s reminded that he’s also managed to make his family independent of _him_ in the process. 

Ian’s siblings seem pretty much unaware of this conflict inside their habitually sidelined middle brother, but Mickey considers himself lucky to both notice it himself and to be someone who’s got Ian’s complete confidence. Turning his hand around under Ian’s, Mickey catches his eye as their fingers lock together. Ian shoots him a thankful smile.

”There’s gonna be a big thing happening in like a month,” Mickey takes over, leaning a little closer to the microphone, ”think it’s got something to do with all these commies running around.”

Ian huffs and rolls his eyes, Mickey’s cunning plan to snap him out of his blues by being culturally insensitive obviously successful. Ian’s been working with the welcoming committee ever since they got the Matrix back up and running, and his newfound sense of political correctness is entirely endearing to Mickey, as well as a great source of ammunition whenever he feels like stirring up shit for fun.

”It’s Chūn Jié,” Ian cuts in, clearing his throat, ”well, more or less, doubt they’ve bothered to do the exact math.”

”Don’t all got genius boyfriends,” Mickey mutters and smirks at Ian when he glances his way.

”They’re gonna reset the calendar, officially,” Ian explains, ”the Spring Festival’s gonna mark the new year.”

_”I’ve heard about something like that,”_ Lip hums, _”we’ve kinda been dismissing it as rumors, though.”_

”No, it’s happening,” Mickey announces proudly, his fucking boyfriend is on that goddamned committee, too, after all, ”they’ve got big plans to ship everyone to the surface for a couple of days, probably gonna be fucking chaos.”

”Like one of those street parties we used to have back home,” Ian supplies with a tinge of nostalgia to his crooked smile, ”but with billions of people and _guaranteed_ crappy weather.”

_”We’ll find ourselves a hovercraft to blow up, keep us warm,”_ Lip jokes, _”guess we’ll see you then, huh?”_

”Guess so,” Ian hums and shoves his elbow out at Mickey, ”Mickey’s really excited.”

”Fuck off,” Mickey protests when Lip chuckles and Ian grins at him.

”Do I gotta worry about this bromance that’s blossomed between you two while I was away?” Ian asks Lip, raising his eyebrows at Mickey while he’s talking. 

_”Don’t think so,”_ Lip says, Carl’s sniggering coming through with it, _”he seemed really attached to your uh-, what was it? Ass-mole.”_

”My ass what?” Ian seems genuinely surprised by Lip’s revelation, glancing at Mickey who only looks back at him, because honestly Ian shouldn’t need an explanation for that one. Mickey’s been pretty fucking vocal about how he feels about Ian’s ass-mole, even though he’s admittedly been mourning it in silence.

”Can you believe it?” Mickey drawls and leans closer to the mic. ”It’s not there anymore!” 

_”Just, uh-,”_ Lip laughs, _”just one more thing lost in the fire, huh?”_

Mickey grins and is about to say something really crude when he’s interrupted by his son.

”Uncle Lip!”

Mickey looks on as Ian twists on his stool at the sound, smiling over his shoulder at Yevgeny and beaconing him to come join them, the kid running forward and unceremoniously squeezing himself in between them. Ian lets go of Mickey to take Yevgeny under the armpits and heave him up to sit on his knees, bringing him closer to the microphone.

_”Hey, bud,”_ Lip greets him, _”you taking good care of you dad and Ian for me?”_

”Yes,” Yevgeny assures him earnestly, ”but they can’t talk now, Uncle Lip.”

_”No?”_

”Apparently Ian’s made plans,” Mickey interjects, ”and hopefully they’re gonna involve only the two of us and no clothes, so yeah, I’d appreciate it if you kept this little powwow here short and sweet.”

_”Just checking in,”_ Lip assures him, his dry tone amused, _”you’re excused, but leave Yev on alright? Got some top secret information just for him.”_

”Can I tell dad?” Yevgeny asks, completely unbothered by Ian standing up and maneuvering the kid back down to sit on the stool on his own, only frowning when Lip sounds unconvinced. ”He doesn’t like surprises.”

_”Nah, Yevy,”_ Lip denies his request, _”it’s not a surprise, man, it’s a secret. Pretty sure Mickey’s got no issue with those.”_

”Bye, Lip,” Ian says with a smirk, before he bends down to press a quick kiss to Yevgeny’s hair, ruffling it as he straightens up, ”bye Yevy, be good to mama.”

”Give her hell,” Mickey says for balance, giving his kid a gentle shove to the shoulder to make him giggle before he gets up after Ian. 

He ignores Svetlana yelling something after them in Russian, giving her a curt nod and a fake smile as he follows Ian out of their lively home and towards their level’s common sanitary facilities.

”I miss showers with fucking water,” Mickey sighs as they turn in their clothes at the desk, helping themselves to the piled up courtesy towels in order to cover up as they walk through the public shower and step into two adjoining booths, ”big shower, nice even spray of hot water. Coulda been eating my ass out right now, man, what a fucking waste.”

He can hear Ian chuckle through the thin wall separating them, even over the quick cleaning process spraying and whirring around him.

”Can do that later,” Ian promises as they step out and re-wrap themselves in the towels. The showers aren’t wet so it’s not like they need them to get dry, but modesty still turns out to be something a lotta people insist on being hung up on, even after everything that’s happened.

”What kinda plans have you been making, exactly?” Mickey asks, eyebrows flying when he glances at Ian and lets him take the lead.

”You’ll see,” Ian looks smug as fuck when he leans against the reception desk and turns away from Mickey to address the laundry clerk, ”five-two and five-three, please.”

They get their clothes back, already cleaned and fresh, and quickly put them on so they can get out of there. The concept of Zion’s shower facilities is a headache of futuristic bullshit and most of the time Mickey feels like he’s on The fucking Simpsons, wearing pretty much the same clothes day in and day out. But then again, Zion’s independency of running water through the chemical wash is probably the only reason human kind is still miraculously alive outside the machines’ power plant. Mickey might miss the feeling of water washing over him but he guesses it’s a pretty small prize to pay for an _existence_ , one that isn’t at least plagued by squalor and decease. And he might miss some of his old cut-off t-shirts, or whatever, but it’s not like he ever cared that much about having a diverse wardrobe.

”Where are we going?” he asks as Ian leads him around the fifty-first level and towards the elevators, glancing at him through the rush of people going places all around their leisured, aimless pace.

”You’ll see,” Ian insists on his surprise to remain just that, swerving out of the way of a woman carrying a large hamper and lightly knocking shoulders with Mickey when he falls back in line.

”Yeah, okay,” Mickey smirks and gestures for Ian to go first when they stop in front of an elevator, the doors sliding open right away, ”hope you’re enjoying yourself.”

”Yep,” Ian hums, and he’s stepping closer before the doors have even slid shut properly, getting them face to face and backing Mickey up against the side of the elevator as it’s shaking loose and starting to drop.

”This your plan?” Mickey mumbles, nose bumping into Ian’s and his hands grabbing on to his sides to bring him in a little closer. ”Gonna jam the elevator and fuck me in here until they send out a rescue party?”

Ian snorts, but then leans back a fraction and tilts his head to the side like he’s seriously thinking it over.

”Don’t know,” he says, lips pulling into a smile as he dips back in, ”sounds kinda good to me right now.”

But the elevator grinds to a halt before they’ve even locked lips.

”Too slow,” Mickey mutters, and picking up his eyebrows he laughs as he’s pushing his reluctant boyfriend out through the open doors and past a small group of disinterested temple workers waiting to get in after them.

”You believe in any of that crap?” Mickey asks conversationally, pointing with a thumb over his shoulder and at the group of wannabe monks filing into the elevator behind them, glancing at Ian as they turn down one of the narrow hallways.

”What?” Ian asks, the corners of his mouth dipping when Mickey gestures vaguely towards one of the many clay statues made and randomly raised around the city. ”Sure, why not?”

”Because it’s bullshit, Ian,” Mickey says, recoiling at Ian’s naively dismissive answer, ”it’s a bunch of fairy tale opium of the people bullshit and I can’t believe you-”

Mickey huffs and swats at Ian’s hand when the dopey asshole grins and tries to touch him, presumably to calm him down.

”You don’t seriously believe that the guy was some kinda super-Christ, right?” Mickey complains, trying on a firm scowl to mask how little he actually cares about this shit when it comes to Ian. ”Because this relationship thing has been going really well and I’d hate to have to dump you now, right before whatever ass-eatin’, nipple-pinchin’ plans you’ve got cooking for our damned one-year-and-some anniversary date.”

He makes the mistake of looking at Ian’s calmly amused face before he’s done and ends up finishing his rant with a tellingly helpless smile that most likely, completely, undermines his threat.

”They’re just stories,” Ian shrugs, ”didn’t believe the Bible for shit before, you know? But I think Jesus was a real person, like- an activist, a revolutionary, right? Who did good things and had a lotta bullshit said about him later. Makes me think this isn’t any different.”

”Our own, brand new Jesus Christ fucking Superstar,” Mickey mutters, suspiciously eying another one of these never-ending statues as they walk past it, colorful paper flowers crowning the clay head, ”you ever met him?”

”Neo?” Ian asks casually as they turn a corner and Mickey suddenly thinks he knows exactly where they’re going, nodding at Ian when he looks at him. ”Yeah, once.”

”No shit?” Mickey hates himself a little for being kinda impressed. ”What did he say?”

”I’m sorry,” Ian says and smiles when Mickey raises his eyebrows at him, urging him to go on, ”no, that’s it; ’I’m sorry’.”

”I’m sorry,” Mickey repeats with a frown, ”he step on your foot or something?”

”No, he-,” Ian huffs and pulls a hand through his hair, throwing Mickey an embarrassed smile, ”was at this temple gathering, right before Liberation, like-, maybe only a couple of weeks before.”

”Did he hit on you?” Mickey is maybe _a little_ too quick to accuse the man who sacrificed his life for their freedom of trying to steal his boyfriend, eyebrows climbing up his forehead when Ian grins and shakes his head. ”’Cause I’ve heard about these temple orgies man, don’t think I fucking haven’t.”

”I’ll take you to one, some day,” Ian muses and puts his arm across Mickey’s shoulders, leading him out into the port, the dome opening up around them and swallowing up every little noise that seemed so loud in the narrow corridor.

”Like fuck you will,” Mickey says and rolls his shoulders, pretty much accidentally shaking Ian’s arm off him.

”Just saying we can go if you wanna go,” Ian offers and is still smiling gently when Mickey looks at him, ”was never that into it.”

Mickey shrugs, it’s not like he’d ever say ’no’ to grinding it up with Ian, even surrounded by some kinda raptured dance orgy.

”But you went to this one?” he says, trying to get the conversation back on track.

”Yeah,” Ian admits and points down the docks, towards the silhouette of a familiar ship far down the row, ”I was there with Lake, it was after my first tour with the Nightingale and she liked keeping me around to-, don’t know, teach me stuff, I guess. Think she just didn’t want to go to this thing alone, the captains were all up on this platform talking politics once the party kicked off.”

”Guessing the council’s generally above a good old-fashioned orgy, huh?” Mickey sighs, shaking his head. ”Fucking typical.”

”Fuck-ing typical,” Ian agrees with a laugh, ”was standing around with these types, trying to follow what they were talking about, when one of the councilmen comes up to us, proud as fuck, right? One arm around Neo himself, walking him around the room and introducing him to everyone.”

Mickey purses his lips together and feels his eyebrows climb as he throws Ian an impressed look. ”So you were introduced and everything?”

”Oh, not me,” Ian huffs, ”I was just standing there, completely invisible, while they’re talking at this guy and he says maybe five words, all in all. Seemed kinda soft-spoken and, you know… ineffable.”

”So he was weird?” Mickey decides to cut to the chase.

”Shit Mick,” Ian huffs, looking around himself like he suspects someone to jump out and arrest them for fucking heresy or something.

”Ain’t nothing wrong with weird,” Mickey says with a shrug.

”Yeah, guess not,” Ian admits with a wide smile, shaking his head, ”so anyway, I’m standing there, half listening to what’s going on, when I realize that this… fucking _messiah_ , Neo himself, is staring right at me, the whole time, just staring. Like he’s not sure I’m all there or something.”

Mickey frowns. ”So what did you do?”

”Nothing, just stared back,” Ian says and shrugs, ”then something seemed to kinda… shift, and he snaps out of it, starts answering questions and responding to whatever, starts paying attention to the people around us.”

”I’m pretty fucking confused right now,” Mickey admits.

”Yeah, yeah,” Ian agrees emphatically, right as they reach the open bridge of the Nightingale, ”no kidding, and the next thing that happens is Neo and his councilman are walking away and he’s saying goodbye and shaking hands… but when they walk past me he stops and he puts a hand on my shoulder and he says-”

Ian stops them right in front of the bridge by putting a hand to Mickey’s shoulder, turning them to stand facing each other and, suddenly intensely serious, looks Mickey straight in the eye.

”I’m sorry.”

Mickey groans and tips his head back, shaking it when he looks at Ian again and punches lightly at his shoulder, making him laugh.

”Are you fucking with me?” Mickey accuses him, raising a suspicious eyebrow when Ian shakes his head. ”All that buildup and it’s still not making any fucking sense though!”

Ian shrugs, smiling fondly at Mickey’s annoyed complaining and casually keeping their eyes locked.

”Don’t know,” he hums, ”think it makes sense… at the time, it kinda felt like he could see right through me, you know? Maybe he could see that I knew I’d made a mistake. That if I’d been given the opportunity to go back and choose that damned blue pill, I would’ve.”

”So why didn’t he just get you arrested or something?” Mickey asks, his fingers absently pulling at the hem of Ian’s sweater, hands flattening over his stomach and lightly smoothing up it until he can feel the edge of Ian’s ribs under the tips of his fingers, through the coarsely knitted fabric.

”Maybe he could tell that I wouldn’t betray them,” Ian sounds like he’s pretty much just guessing at this point, like he knows he might be reading way too much into one strange encounter with someone who was always more myth than an actual person, but like he still can’t help theorizing, ”maybe he could see that I was in love. And that I’d made a stupid choice, finally realizing I could never undo it.”

Ian looks down between them and sighs when Mickey touches a hand to his cheek, rubbing the pad of his thumb up and down the stern line next to his mouth.

”Doesn’t sound like he was half bad,” Mickey admits, grinning when Ian’s lips quirk up in a slight smirk, ”as far as revolutionary messiahs go.”

”You would’ve liked Trinity, though,” Ian decides, looking back up when he steps just a little closer, ”think she said a whole entire sentence to me once, right here in this very port.”

”Uh-huh, that right?” Mickey grins and bites his lip over it, turning with Ian when his shoulders rock gently from side to side, ”and what did the holy mother say to you? In ten words or less, fucking please.”

Ian holds up one hand next to them, and without breaking their eye contact he starts counting it out on his fingers.

”I, don’t, have, time, for,” he says, pausing to raise his other hand and continue, ”this, shit… move. Eight.”

”Did _she_ tryna hit on you?” Mickey can’t help asking, grinning wider when Ian huffs out a laugh and drops his hands.

”Now, that would’ve been a story,” he admits, shaking his head and looking up at the wide dome above.

”Babe,” Mickey mutters to get Ian’s attention back, smirking when he instantly receives it, ”why are we here?”

Ian mirrors his smile, eyes shining and moving slightly as he stares into Mickey’s. ”You’ll see.” 

Mickey thinks Ian’s just fucking teasing him at this point, winking and letting go of him to move closer to the hovercraft’s bridge. If this whole surprise business turns out to be just an empty ship with a lumpy bunk for a couple of hours’ alone time, Mickey might be a little disappointed. Not very, but a little.

”Tang,” Ian calls out, lightly rapping his knuckles against the side of the bridge, his voice echoing through the large vessel.

”Morning boys,” Tang’s voice comes through, right before they see her feet stepping down the bridge, slowly revealing the rest of her, ”wipe off your shoes, come on board.”

Ian clasps his hands together and Mickey can see his wide smile even from behind, his ears moving with it as he steps up on the bridge to meet Tang half way. Mickey’s only properly meet the awkward engineer once before, but he pretty much considers her all in his good books already, and not _just_ because a friend of Ian’s is a friend of his. One of the first things he noticed about her is that she’d rather not be touched, if it can be helped, and even though Mickey’s got his own set of very clear exceptions to his fiercely protected personal space, he _gets_ it. Ian gets it too, but that doesn’t stop him from quickly wrapping his long arms around her shoulders, ambushing her by coming in from the side and pressing a loud kiss to her temple.

He does it because he knows he’s allowed. Tang laughs and hugs her hands to Ian’s arm, giving it a quick squeeze right above the elbow before Ian lets her go again and steps back, turning to file in behind her as they both face Mickey’s more careful approach.

”Hello Mickey,” Tang squints at him, crossing her arms, ”you ready for this?”

”Less by the fucking minute,” Mickey admits, feeling oddly reassured when she smiles. Ian raises his eyebrows and turns into the ship without a word, Tang quickly following him and Mickey picking up the rear with an annoyed sigh.

”It’s pretty self-explanatory,” Ian tells Tang as they walk through a glum corridor, Mickey none too discreetly eavesdropping as he catches up and falls in line a couple of steps behind them, ”it’s in beta still, but the syntax is complete.”

”So why not take it to control?” Tang asks as they step into the core and Mickey suddenly knows exactly what they’re doing here.

”Ian, no-, no way,” he protests and stops in his tracks, ”fuck no, come on.”

Tang walks over to the center console to sit down and immediately start typing, inserting the disc Ian must have given her and obviously giving them some space. Ian turns and smiles that smile, like he knows he’s gonna win, as he steps up to Mickey.

Mickey shakes his head and opens his mouth to protest when Ian cuts him off.

”I know you didn’t like the other simulations,” he says, flashing a quick smile when Mickey widens his eyes, ”but this is different, I promise.”

At the core of Zion, in control, there’s a rec center with a park of consoles, all with one to a dozen data probes plugged in for people to use, to load themselves into any of the programs amassed in Zion’s records since the start of the rebellion. Ian had taken Mickey there and they’d maybe gotten a little ahead of themselves, ending up in some kinda sex dungeon with Mickey freaking out and throwing up the second he was unplugged by a slightly bewildered operative.

He can’t really explain it, but plugging himself into anything _not real_ feels thoroughly uncomfortable, like he can sense the probe sticking into his neck the whole time, like he can feel the operatives observing his every move in there. And truthfully, he doesn’t like it because he knows how much the Matrix fucked with Ian’s brain and he can’t help thinking that plugging back in, even when it’s only for recreational purposes, might mess with him more than anyone seems willing to admit.

But it’s been a while since that first catastrophic trip into virtual reality, and Ian’s not really mentioned it since. The only reason they went in the first place was because Mickey’d been complaining about their lack of privacy with thirty kids in the adjoining room, and one insisting on sleeping in their bed with them almost every night. And when Ian took Mickey on a sexy, virtual getaway and Mickey threw up on him for his efforts, he’d just shrugged and suggested they go clean up and then find a maintenance closet somewhere to bang it out there.

For Ian to suggest they try this thing again, there must be a good reason.

”Different how?” Mickey asks, Ian’s easy smile turning a shade more hopeful.

”I wrote it,” he says, voice dropping into that damned base that kinda shakes Mickey to his fucking core, ”for you.”

”Fuck,” Mickey winces and licks his lips, shaking his head as he feels the last of his reticence draining right outta him, ”fine, whatever… not fucking you in there, though, just saying.”

”I know,” Ian sighs and rolls his eyes in mock disappointment, ”you gotta protect your modesty, I get it.”

”Fuck you,” Mickey nods at Ian, refusing to return the favor when Ian gives him a salacious grin and pulls him closer by his loose sweater, ”just ’cause I don’t want some perv lookin’ at us when we’re doing it.”

Ian laughs, his breath fanning over Mickey’s lips as he bumps their chests together and folds his arms around Mickey’s waist.

”I love you,” he mutters, his lips only just moving over Mickey’s, falling open in anticipation, ”did you know that?”

”Had a hunch,” Mickey admits, smiling and pulling back a little when Ian’s lips try to catch him, following him.

”Maybe I’m a perv,” Tang interrupts them from the console, clearly having heard everything but not looking up at them from the desk when they barely break apart to turn towards her, ”but I’m pretty sure I didn’t sign up for this just to sit here and watch the two of you suck face.”

”She didn’t?” Mickey asks, grinning when Ian covertly laces their fingers together and pulls him closer to the console.

”Didn’t write a sex program,” Ian reiterates as he lets go of Mickey to start punching things into the screen next to one of the chairs, ”and she’s just here as an operator, on call only. There’ll be no strangers watching us this time, Mick, I promise.”

”Well,” Mickey says and sucks his teeth, watching Ian move as he prepares Mickey’s chair, ”now I’m kinda bummed you didn’t write a sex program.”

”Could probably bang in any program,” Ian shrugs and throws Mickey a quick smile, walking around the chair and absently unclasping the buckles on the footrests, ”could even do it straight up in the construct if you wanna, I don’t need special coding to make you feel good.”

”Can’t believe this shit is workin’ for me,” Mickey mutters, eying the chair and then his proud boyfriend on the other side, waiting on him to take a seat, ”but just so we’re super fucking clear; we’re not doing it in the construct.”

Ian sighs and tips his head back, blinking up at the ceiling as his lips quirk into a small smirk.

”I’m tryna be romantic here, Mick,” he explains, slowly, looking at Mickey again and spreading out his hands to indicate the rusty interior of the ship, ”would you please just… stop resisting?”

Mickey sucks his teeth and pretends to think it over, before he shrugs and without any further preamble climbs up on the worn, cushioned chair, settling in and blinking up at the pipes running across the ceiling when Ian leans over and fills out his view.

”Relax, okay?” he mumbles, and Mickey feels like he’s got buttons only Ian knows how to press when his shoulders instantly sink and his fists unclench at the simple suggestion. ”All you gotta say is ’stop’ and I’ll get us outta there real quick, if you don’t like it.”

Mickey lets out a slow breath and nods, eyes steadily on Ian’s calm face as he puts a hand to Mickey’s forehead and gives him an encouraging smile.

”See you on the other side,” he says, and Mickey’s whole world is swallowed up in bright, never-ending white. 

He tries to shield his eyes for a second, but then they seem to adjust and the white, endless space becomes more like a flat screen, surrounding him, erasing all concepts of dimension and space, making him feel almost two-dimensional when he tries to find his own shadow. It’s not there, there’s just this one, flat, absolute white; nothingness covered in snow. Infinity designed by some goddamned Scandinavian minimalist asshole. 

”Hey.”

Mickey spins around at the sound of Ian’s voice and he almost feels seasick when he lands his eyes on his boyfriend’s fresh face, a fixed point in zero gravity, lit up like a motherfucking cherub. He looks like a memory, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, and the hoodie Mickey borrowed from him the first night he stayed over at his place and then never gave back. Pretending not to remember he had it, but secretly wearing it around the apartment when Ian wasn’t around.

Mickey looks down at himself and suddenly realizes that he’s got jeans on, and not any pair of nondescript jeans, but _his_ jeans, the ones with the grease stain on the left thigh and the slight tear over the right knee. The ones he’s worn so much the thinned out fabric feels like a second skin, the ones that sit kinda snug over his ass in a way he’d never fucking admit makes him feel sexy as all hell. 

He looks up as Ian steps up to him, eyes sweeping down and up again as his lips bend into a crooked smile and he reaches out to touch the worn edge of Mickey’s sleeveless flannel, the one he cut up as a teenager and still wore well into his twenties, maybe not to work, but whenever he wanted to relax and feel more like himself. He never gave much thought to any of the shit he wore back inside the Matrix, but looking down at what his subconscious seems to think is basically ’him’, he silently concludes that he probably always cared more than he’d thought. 

”I like this,” Ian murmurs and smirks when Mickey looks up and meets his heavy gaze, feels Ian’s hand pull lightly at a couple of loose threads and then move down his arm, goosebumps trailing the feathery touch.

Mickey already feels himself reacting and licks his suddenly dry lips before he raises his eyebrows at Ian’s blatant flirting. ”The fuck did I tell you about banging in the construct?”

Ian leans back a little, mouth falling slack in feigned shock. ”What did I do?”

”You know I’m fucking helpless when you use that damned voice, fucking bedroom eyes,” Mickey accuses him with a shrug, like he’s shaking something off as he takes a small step back, ”you’re instigating!”

”I would never,” Ian lies with his devil smirk, and Mickey’s a little disappointed when he immediately drops it, producing a cellphone out of thin air that slides open with a soft click, putting it to his ear.

”Tang, we’re in,” he says, not turning off his goddamned siren eyes even while his voice flips into something a lot more conversational, ”load the program.”

Mickey resists the urge to grab on to Ian’s arm when the white space surrounding them folds in on itself and, like a long wave rolling through reality, turns the nothingness into _something_. The first thing Mickey notices is the firm ground underneath his feet, soft and emerald green when he looks down, the second thing is a slight breeze rustling through the grass and his hair, and the way Ian’s chest expands when he takes a deep breath and shoots Mickey a quick smile. The third thing is a bright blue sky, with clouds like big balls of cotton gliding past high above their heads, casting pleasant shadows and offering the occasional quick reprieve from the warm, brilliant sun.

The sun, the sun and Ian’s dry hand fitting into Mickey’s and tangling their fingers, the side of his face all lit up when Mickey glances his way as they both turn towards the sky like a couple of daisies on a hill, soaking up the yellow rays after a long winter.

When Mickey’d tried to do this before, enter a virtual reality, everything had felt so fundamentally wrong he couldn’t stand it for more than a couple of minutes. The same amount of time in here, in Ian’s design, and he’s almost worried he’s gonna forget himself and never wanna leave, everything feels so _right_.

”Okay?” Ian asks, the word not more than a whisper.

Mickey opens his eyes, he can’t even remember closing them, and blinks out over the perfect rendition of some kinda reality he’d only ever been abstractly aware of inside the Matrix. Like a postcard from paradise; more picture perfect than his life had ever been back then.

”Fuck, Ian,” he huffs and shakes his head, ”I know it’s not real but-, fuck.”

Ian grins and tightens his grip on Mickey’s hand.

”Copy-pasted some of the code straight from the Matrix,” he explains, sounding really exited to finally share this with Mickey, ”especially shit like air, sun and like, the smell of nothing in particular, cut grass and summer flowers and all that.”

”Could’ve just done a dirty back alley,” Mickey mutters and turns around to take in the vast landscape surrounding him, pulling a chuckling Ian with him to run around him in a tight circle as he does so, ”shoved a stinky dumpster in there, gas and police sirens and fucking puke in the corner, I don’t-”

Mickey turns around again and gestures at what he’s starting to realize is a bunch of ornate carousels and concession stands surrounding them, like they’ve landed in the middle of an abandoned 19th century carnival, Ian straight up laughing at his baffled reaction.

”What am I supposed to do with this?” Mickey complains. ”I know I bitched about romance earlier, but this-, Ian, this is beautiful. The fuck am I supposed to do with this?”

Ian chuckles and pulls up Mickey’s hand, pressing it to his warm lips as Mickey gives up on understanding this new, amazing world and finds equilibrium in focus on Ian’s familiar face.

”Just breathe,” Ian suggests and grins, holding Mickey’s hand to his chest, covering it with his own two hands and flattening Mickey’s palm over his calm, steady heartbeat. 

Mickey closes his eyes and tries to think of nothing, ignoring the ghost of the probe he knows is sticking out of the back of his head, ignoring the nagging concern for Ian’s mental stability. He opens his eyes again when he hears Ian huff out a surprised laugh.

”Sexy,” Ian says, lips quirked into a crooked smirk and his eyes half-lidded as he glances down Mickey’s body and then up again. Mickey follows his line of sight and can’t help the wide grin spreading across his face when he sees the garish green and orange print, palm trees and flowers repeated down his chest and short sleeves as he twists a little to take in the full glory of his new Hawaiian shirt.

”Always wanted one of these,” he admits, still grinning when he looks back at Ian, ”looks damned good on me, don’t it?”

”Damned good,” Ian agrees, jutting his chin out in a way that has Mickey a little suspicious of whether he really means it, but whatever. Ian can think what he likes, Mickey _looks good_.

”So what’s with the fucking theme park?” Mickey asks, feeling himself relax almost entirely when they start strolling down the slight hill and past the motionless carnival rides, Ian’s fingers still snugly laced in with his own.

”It’s not finished,” Ian admits, gesturing towards a couple of empty stands, ”it’s not really for us, thinking we could bring Yev here later, maybe. Rest of the kids, too, have like a day out kinda thing, from time to time.”

Mickey swallows down his initial, gut response to the idea. Plugging in is undeniably escapist and thrilling fun, but Mickey can’t help but kinda compare it to taking drugs. Bending reality until you control it, and then until it inevitably starts controlling you. Mickey thinks he’s probably been on every kinda drug there is, at one point or another, but he’s never let himself lose that control, always stopped while he was still ahead. And fuck if he’s ever gonna let his own kid fall for something that’s gonna turn him into any kinda addict. 

But a day out in the sun, for the occasional family vacation or whatever, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to come in here and escape for a little while. 

”Yeah,” he says, ”maybe.”

”Come on,” Ian hums, pulling lightly on Mickey’s hand and guiding him further down a narrow path, away from the carnival grounds. 

The landscape quickly opens up to some kinda Sound of Music bullshit; rolling green hills and misty mountains far in the distance, and a great, clear blue lake in between. There’s a small, modest cabin by the edge of the lake and the very second Mickey thinks he’s pretty done with walking, long hikes’ve never been his thing, they find themselves only a few minutes away from the front door, Ian letting go of Mickey’s hand and stepping up on the porch when they reach it. 

”You hungry?” Ian asks as he lets himself inside the cabin, leaving the door open for Mickey to follow. Mickey puts a hand to his stomach and rubs it absently, thinking it over. He hadn’t thought he was hungry, but now that Ian’s mentioned it he feels it flaring up inside him.

”Yeah, guess so,” Mickey admits and closes the door behind them, looking curiously around the sparsely decorated room that’s making up the whole cabin by the looks of it; large windows facing out in all four directions, ”but I kinda don’t wanna leave this weird-ass place yet, you know?”

He walks around the room, hovering his hand over the back of a very inviting couch, smiling lightly at the odd photos framed on the walls. There’s that awful sketch Mickey made of Ian while he was still looking, that Ian found folded up in one of his pockets just a couple of days after their reunion. How the fuck Ian’s gotten it in here is pretty much beyond Mickey’s remedial coding skills. There’s a scruffy-looking photo of Mickey next to it, scowling at the camera. Mickey scowls back at it and realizes that it’s the photo from his old ID-card. 

Then there’s a photograph of Yevgeny from his third birthday, Aunt Mandy and his mom flanking him, Nika on Svetlana’s left and the vague reflection of Mickey in the mirror behind them, holding the camera and the bright flash obscuring everything but the top of his head, brows furrowed in concentration. It used to be taped to their fridge, before the divorce, and it was the only thing Mickey brought with him after, starting fresh in a tiny, depressing bachelor’s pad before finding himself a real home, for him and Yevgeny. For Ian too, when that started happening.

It’s only been _one year_ , it kinda feels like a lifetime.

Mickey turns around at a soft scraping sound, of a phone being picked off its hook, and looks over at Ian in time to see him putting a beige, square receiver to his ear, the curled cord unfurling and re-furling when he pulls on it.

”Operator,” he speaks into the phone, smiling lightly over at Mickey, ”load date scenario one, please, thank you.”

Mickey looks around the room as a kind of shudder runs through him, through the walls and floor and Ian, too, judging by the way his smile widens into that jackal grin Mickey knows he’s a little self-conscious about, for some fucking reason. It’s wide and honest and dangerous, and Mickey loves it.

”What did that do?” Mickey asks as Ian hangs up. Ian nods at something behind Mickey, causing him to turn around and glance out the window, seeing noting but the glittering surface of the lake through the clear glass.

”Open it,” Ian suggests, and Mickey can feel him coming closer while he does as he’s told, grabbing on to the window and pulling it up, wedging his shoulder in under it to push it the last couple of inches when it jams a little. Already halfway out the window, Mickey puts his hands on the sill and looks down at the fire escape below the window, following the ladder with his eyes until he has to twist around and look up at the edge of the roof. It looks entirely different from here, than from up on the hill, almost like the cosy cottage has been replaced by the top floor of an inner city apartment building.

Mickey’s not sure what he’s supposed to do, but thinks he can take a hint. He climbs out the window and takes to the ladder, the wind pulling at his floral shirt as he steps up on the flat roof and slowly spins around to take in the full three-sixty view. It’s still stupidly beautiful, but it’s got nothing on what’s _on_ the roof; there’s a shelf of books and CDs, another couch and a pretty impressive looking stereo hooked up next to it, and in the middle of the roof there’s a small square table set up with two simple plates and utensils, a tiny fridge on one side and a barbecue grill on the other.

The smell is nothing short of fucking heavenly.

Date scenario one turns out to be steaks; grilled to perfection and served with cold beers and potato salad. It’s so simple and so good Mickey could cry, cutting into his food and feeling the wide array of tastes and textures against his tongue as though it were _real_. They eat in focused silence until their plates are wiped clean and they tumble over to collapse next to each other on the couch.

”Weird to think we’re gonna wake up later and still feel full, even though we haven’t actually been eating anything,” Mickey mutters, his food coma feeling pretty fucking real to him right in this moment, too, turning him into a dime store philosopher, ”this is the really fucked up part, isn’t it? This is what’s gonna kill me, I’ll be sittin’ on this roof eatin’ steaks until I fucking starve to death, won’t I?”

”Probably,” Ian hums, huffing out a pained laugh when Mickey only barely manages to jab him in the ribs with his elbow.

They sit together like a couple of beached whales, but after a couple of minutes Ian somehow manages to get on his feet, throwing a book over at Mickey and hitting him right in the gut when Mickey’s shot reflexes don’t even get his hands off the couch in response to his thoughtful call of ’heads up’. 

Ian plays music and uses Mickey for a pillow, stretching out on the couch with the back of his head resting on Mickey’s thigh as he plays album after album Mickey doesn’t recognize, staring up at the blue sky and only getting up every forty-five minutes to an hour to change the CD.

Mickey reads his book, slowly and inefficiently, having a hard time getting into it for the first fifty pages or so, not really caring about what it is he’s reading and just enjoying the flow of words, the transportation into another mind, another world. He holds the book in one hand, resting it on his free thigh right next to Ian’s head, and he’s got his other hand on Ian’s chest, a shared cigarette permanently stuck between two fingers. He only moves to take a drag, or turn a page, or allow for Ian to get up and change the music.

He’s on page seventy-five, and he might actually feel like he’s starting to properly pay attention to the plot, when Ian disappears from under his arm and the cigarette he puts to his lips turns out to be just a stump. He puffs on it for a second before he lays his open book over his thigh and takes the cigarette with his other hand, leaning over the side of the couch to stub it out against the concrete roof. He slouches down even further when he sits back, leaving the book where it is and settling in and watch Ian instead, crouched down by the stereo and engrossed in the booklet of the CD he’s just put on. Mickey recognizes this one.

”Fucking Radiohead,” he mutters and shakes his head when Ian looks up at him with a surprised smile.

”You know it?” Ian asks, turning the volume up just a little. It’s on track two already, Mickey knows it really fucking well.

”Know it?” Mickey sighs and looks up at the sky like he’s conjuring up old memories. ”You used to play it all the time, man, once it was on fucking repeat while we were banging at your place, and you fell asleep on me after… think I listened to the whole fucking thing like five times in a row that night alone.”

”Shit,” Ian laughs as _Paranoid Android_ draws to an end and _Subterranean Homesick Alien_ takes over, ”you never told me that, I’m sorry.”

”Mh,” Mickey hums and shrugs, leaning his head back against the couch and keeping his eyes on the sky, ”might have bought the CD after you disappeared, too.”

Mickey can hear Ian moving, but he doesn’t come closer. ”Yeah?”

”Yeah,” Mickey snorts and closes his eyes, not too proud to admit the next part, ”drank a bottle of Jack and fell asleep on the floor, crying like some bitch. Only listened to it once, you know?”

Track four has almost reached its end before Ian says anything.

”C’mere?” he asks, laughing when Mickey smirks and shakes his head, eyes still closed. ”C’mere.”

Mickey sighs and tips his head forward, looking over at Ian standing in front of him, waiting. He holds his hand out and Mickey takes it, and lets himself be pulled out of the soft couch to step up to Ian, staring into his magnet eyes as he quietly hums along with the words. 

”Wake, from your sleep,” Ian mumbles, hands rubbing up along Mickey’s arms, ”today we escape… we escape.”

Mickey huffs and wants to tease him about all of this, but instead he steps in closer and fills his world up with only Ian, Thom Yorke singing at him to breathe, keep breathing.

”I can’t do this alone,” Mickey mutters along with the words, pushing his lips onto Ian’s when he sees them dip with unnecessary regret and sadness.

”One more thing,” Ian mumbles against him, his hands falling down and sneaking around Mickey’s waist, fitting them together and slowly rubbing up Mickey’s lower back.

”What did you do?” Mickey sighs, leaning back a little in his embrace and picking up a hand to touch it to Ian’s cheek as it pulls up in a slight smile and he turns his head to make them look out at the setting sun.

”I might have timed the gravity to shut off at sunset,” he admits and purses his lips over a wide grin when he looks back at Mickey, shrugging when he no doubt sees the baffled question all over his face, ”thought it’d be fun?”

Mickey feels it release like a shudder through his skin, and suddenly the ground is just a thing underneath him, same as the air is a thing above him. He’s still standing, but it doesn’t feel like a given anymore, like maybe he might be hovering. Ian grips on to him, his long fingers digging into his back and his firm stomach flat against him as he bends his knees just a little and pushes them off the ground. 

Mickey can swear he fucking planned it, the music rising as they float upwards into thin air, spinning gently and seeing only each other while the sky darkens around them and the stars wake up.

_Now, we are one_   
_in everlasting peace._

In that moment, the fantasy almost feels like death and Mickey’s fucking dying to feel alive; pain and pleasure and joy and hurt, sweat and dirt and the heaviness of gravity and life being _definite_. He needs to get outta this perfection, now, and he needs Ian to remind him of what it _really_ feels like when they touch.

”We should go,” he mutters into Ian’s parted lips, their tangled breathing going haywire and the weightlessness kinda helping when he wraps his arms around Ian’s neck and pulls himself even closer, looking down into Ian’s blown out eyes, ”right now.”

Ian nods and when Mickey blinks up at the Nightingale’s dirty ceiling, feeling the probe sliding out of his headjack, he can hear Ian already wrapping things up in the background. Tang smiles down at him as he tries to find his bearings, and she gives him a quick wink before she disappears out of view.

”Dinner, tomorrow,” Ian says, as Mickey swings his legs over the side of the chair and slowly sits up, rubbing at the back of his head and feeling every pound of his body, weighing him down towards the center of the earth, ”no buts.”

”Butts,” Mickey snorts and grins when it immediately gets him Ian’s attention.

”You okay?” Ian asks him, huffing out a quick laugh when Mickey blinks and holds up a hand to reassure him, already feeling like the world is starting to stabilize around him.

”Oh yeah, sure,” Mickey mutters and closes his eyes over the last pieces slotting back into place, his hand moving on its own accord when it cups over the blatant erection tenting his loose pants, letting out a discreet sigh as he can’t help palming himself, he’s so fucking keyed up and disoriented. Halfway between awake and dreaming.

”See you tomorrow!” Ian yelps and Mickey blinks as he feels like he’s being torn from his aroused, mind-fucked state when he’s suddenly pulled out of his chair by the hand, and dragged out of the ship’s core.

”Uh-huh,” Tang hums and calls out after them, ”the bag’s by the bridge, Ian, have fun!”

”Will do!” Ian assures her over his shoulder as they take to one of the exits and make their way through the hovercraft. There is a small duffle bag right by the bridge, like advertised, and Ian silently grabs it before they hurry out on the dock and through the port, towards the elevators.

Ian’s about to call for one that’ll take them up to their level when Mickey makes a quick decision and pulls him off to the side, pressing the button for one of the service elevators instead, one that only leads further down, underneath the city.

Ian raises his eyebrows at him but doesn’t argue as the light turns green and Mickey lets go of his hand to push open the scissor gate and they walk inside.

”Svet might have taken the Rugrats to temple,” Mickey shrugs and hits the button for one of the lower levels, ”but you know Jess’ll start whining about going home once she gets bored, and I’ll be fucked if this is gonna turn into another mousy missionary bang just ’cause she’s got the attention span of a fucking nat, not today, nuh-uh. Today I’m gonna come fuckin’ screaming, just lettin’ you know.”

Ian doesn’t argue, silently leaning against the side of the wide elevator, slowly bringing them down through the levels, and just watches him while Mickey rants. He grins when Mickey crosses his arms and nods, deciding he’s made a good case for himself.

”What did you do?” he echoes Mickey’s frequently asked question, smiling wide when Mickey rolls his eyes.

”Was down here with Yev last week,” he admits as the elevator grinds to a halt and he puts both hands to the gate to pull it open, ”kid wanted to see the big machines up close so I took him, and you wanna know what I realized?”

”What?” Ian asks as Mickey gestures for him to step out first, like a goddamned gentleman.

”That no one,” Mickey says and joins him on the narrow balcony outside, stretching out on either side of them and running around the massive space filled out with huge, complex machinery, keeping the lights on and fresh air flowing in the city above, ” _ever_ comes down here.”

Ian steps up to the railing, looking out over the vast cave and the steady, perpetual motion of the lifting and releasing, the pulling and pushing of the city’s engine, and he stretches out his arms, wide, and he howls.

The sound echoes through the whole level, bouncing off iron and rust and coming back in diminishing waves, slowly drowning in the steady heartbeat of the machinery. Mickey grins and reaches out to lightly tap Ian between the shoulder blades as he walks past him.

”Come on, wolf boy,” he says and starts climbing down a ladder, two steps at a time and jumping the last couple of feet. He smirks to himself when he hears Ian land behind him, boots heavy and the ladder rattling when he lets go of it, as Mickey walks down a narrow corridor between two rows of tall tanks, steam and heat puffing out in their path from both sides. He guides them through the main floor until he feels like they’re securely hidden from anyone stopping by for a standard maintenance round, and then surveys their immediate surrounding for whatever looks most inviting.

”Here,” Ian says and walks past him, up to a platform raised almost to the same height as his hips, patting it thoughtfully as he turns and looks back at Mickey, ”yeah?”

Mickey eyes the site like he’s some kinda safety inspector, walking up to the iron platform and struggling to maintain a serious face when Ian laughs at the way he knocks on it, checking its density, and touches his palm to the edge of it to see if it’s sharp. Far as he can tell, it’s just the hood covering some kinda catalyst that’s most likely buffering between the two pumps flanking it on either side, four wide pipes running through it and another one suspended a good six feet above it. The technical specs aside, Mickey thinks it looks pretty much made to lay grounds for some public indecency. 

”Yes?” Ian prompts, holding out his hands in a wide shrug when Mickey raises his eyebrows and purses his lips together, for the sake of suspense. ”Approved, Mr Milkovich?”

Mickey clicks his tongue and side-eyes him. ”There are some structural issues-”

Ian laughs and shoves at his shoulder, moving with him when Mickey grins and steps back with the force of his push. He’s got his fucking bedroom eyes turned on again, reeling Mickey in and only obscured for a quick second when Ian pulls both sweater and t-shit over his head, throwing them down on the platform. Mickey bites his lips and grins at him, quick to follow his lead. They get undressed and fucking giggling they lay their clothes out on the platform, cushioning a small section of it before Ian pats his hand over the edge and stands back to watch Mickey heave himself up on it. Adjusting his bare ass on the hard surface, only slightly softened by Ian’s sweater, Mickey leans back on one hand and folds the other around his dick, sticking up and practically pulsating at the sight of Ian’s naked body and predatory gaze.

Mickey feels his grin drop and watches Ian closely as he steps up to him and puts his hands to his knees, pushing them apart a little further to fit himself in between, bringing their faces in real close.

”What’re you thinking?” Mickey asks under his breath, the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears almost drowning out the echoing ratchet of the machines. Ian drops his jaw and nudges their faces together, his tongue seeking out Mickey’s when their lips move, mouthes open like they might just skip the dance and swallow each other whole. Mickey closes his eyes and sighs into it when Ian pulls away a little and then smiling sinks back in to press slow, light kisses along the corner of Mickey’s lips and down to his neck as he firmly removes the hand Mickey’s got absently stroking his own cock, moving it back to instead brace against the platform behind his ass.

”I’m thinkin’,” he mumbles against the sensitive skin on Mickey’s neck, dragging the tip of his tongue up along his throat until he’s breathing into his ear, Mickey letting out a pleased groan and tipping his head back, ”you should let me take care of you.”

Mickey feels a warm smile spread from his lips and up his cheeks, crinkling the corners of his shut eyes as he leans back on his hands and Ian moves down to kiss his shoulder.

”Could do that,” Mickey tries to sound unaffected, teeth digging into his bottom lip when he tips his head forward and opens his eyes to watch Ian mouth his way down his collarbone and chest, his broad shoulders rounded when he bends his neck and fits his lips over Mickey’s left nipple, ”not gonna hear me complainin’.”

Mickey laughs when Ian moans around his nipple in response to his promise, his teeth scraping over the sensitive nub when the fake sound turns into a grin and then quickly replaced by the press of his soft tongue.

”Lie down,” he says, pulling off Mickey’s chest and looking up at him like he still somehow _doesn’t_ expect Mickey to follow his every lead, even as Mickey’s elbows immediately give out and he sinks down on his back, holding their eye contact until he feels the hard metal under his neck and he has to rest his head back, blinking up at the array of pipes and leads crossing the vast space way overhead. Closing his eyes again and cushioning the back of his head with a hand, Mickey focuses on the feeling of Ian’s warm breath and wet lips, hovering and pressing down his ribs and into the soft skin over his stomach, moving and reacting to each light touch. He hums and grins when he feels Ian’s lips close around the tip of his cock and then laps at it, and his startled laugh turns into a sincere moan when Ian suddenly grabs him by the hips and pulls him down to the very edge of the platform.

Mickey puts both hands behind his head and watches Ian through half-lidded eyes as he straightens up and fits his hands into the bend of Mickey’s knees, guiding them up and holding them there as he locks their eyes and sinks down to his knees, pushing at the back of Mickey’s thighs to give himself better access to his ass.

Groaning and buckling his hips up towards Ian’s warm, teasing breath, Mickey puts his feet on his firm shoulders and lets his knees fall apart as much as he can, the metal hard against the back of his head when he brings his hands down to blindly feel out Ian’s face, fisting into his hair when he feels him press a row of wet kisses down the inside of his thigh.

Ian takes his time eating him out, lapping at his hole and sticking his tongue just inside the rim but never taking it further, pulling out and sucking around the flexing muscle when Mickey growls at him for _more_ and can’t help clenching his thighs over the sides of his head until he feels Ian’s strong fingers dig into his soft skin and gently pry them apart again. Smoothing his hands up Mickey’s balls, Ian leaves one to slowly stroke his cock and the other to travel all the way up his stomach and chest to pinch at one of his nipples, Mickey gasping and taking the fucking hint, relaxing his legs and the tight grip he’s got on Ian’s tangled hair.

Ian’s fucking into his hole with his tongue when Mickey feels his balls tighten, and going against every nerve in his body he pulls at Ian’s hair and nudges his face up with his hips. It’s what he wanted, but Mickey still screws his eyes closed and bites out a curse when the careful pressure slips out of his ass and the hand over his throbbing dick stills.

”Gotta stop, fuck-,” he pants, shaking his head, ”gonna come.”

”God-, so good,” Ian mumbles and lightly sinks his teeth into the soft fat of Mickey’s ass, sucking on the patch of skin before Mickey feels the vibration of his baritone groan and suddenly he’s standing up, letting Mickey’s legs fall and clasp around him when he’s pushing his hips in between them. Mickey struggles to get up on his elbows so he can look at Ian and see his flushed face, slick with spit and eyes half-lidded as he lines up their cocks, flattening his big hand over them as he thrusts into the narrow pressure, sliding over Mickey’s stomach and rubbing alongside his dick as Mickey groans out a long string of curses and spurts all over himself. 

Blinking up at nothing he feels his jaw fall slack and mouth open around a strangled moan, his pleasure-numb brain thinking he might still be coming when he feels something sticky hit his chin. Still dazed he frowns and looks down himself to see Ian still thrusting erratically into his hand, his head thrown back and face screwed up in a telling grimace.

”Hope that’s not it,” Mickey pants and rests his head back down with a heavy thud, grinning wider and slowly letting his legs unclamp and fall down Ian’s sides when he hears his breathy laugh, ”got me comin’ way too fucking soon, man, wasn’t ready.”

”Sorry,” Ian humors his post-coital complaining, his hands rubbing soothingly up Mickey’s relaxed thighs as he bends down and starts pressing light kisses down his chest and nosing across his ribs, his tongue wide and flat as he absently starts licking their spunk off Mickey’s skin.

Mickey puts his hands behind his head and lets out a content sigh, not trying particularly hard to make it sound annoyed.

”Hadn’t even done my vocal warmups yet,” he continues his complaint, smiling when Ian sinks his teeth into his side for a second, the soft skin at his waist melding easily into Ian’s warm mouth, before he drags his tongue all the way up to Mickey’s neck and straight to suck at that one spot that kinda derails all thought and turns reason into nonsense, ”was gonna come like a motherfucking opera singer.”

He feels Ian grin into his neck and then the asshole suddenly straightens up, leaning back a little as he looks around them, scanning over their laid out and scattered clothes.

”Where did I -?” he mutters, ignoring Mickey’s displeased grumbling when he steps away from him entirely to spin around, eyes searching the floor. ”The bag-, ah.”

He points off to the side and takes a couple of steps before he bends down and picks up the duffle bag Tang had given him.

”Supplies!” he announces proudly and grins at Mickey as he walks closer and sits down on the edge next to him. Mickey watches the muscles on his back move for a second as Ian’s digging through the bag, before he grunts and heaves himself up to a sitting position, kinda pointlessly scooping with his hand over his abs to catch some of the drying spunk Ian seems to have forgotten all about.

”Missed a spot,” he mutters and flicks the stuff away, rubbing his hand over his thigh until it stops feeling sticky as he looks over at the bag on Ian’s lap, ”whatcha got there, Eagle Scout?”

”Hydration packs,” Ian narrates as he pulls a couple of the flat packs out and holds them up for Mickey to take, ”gotta stay hydrated… power bars.”

Mickey struggles to hold on to the slippery foil packets when Ian blindly drops three wrapped bars on his lap, too, one falling down on the ground before Mickey manages to catch it slipping off his thigh.

”Lube,” Ian continues his inventory, and Mickey is happy to see him placing the clear bottle down on his other side, ”gotta stay lubricated… ah! Here it is.”

Pulling out a folded up piece of paper, Ian lets the bag drop to the floor as he holds up the item in front of them.

”You said we were all out,” Mickey suddenly realizes, once he’s recognized the paper Art uses to wrap up his pre-rolled joints whenever he’s got some extra to share with them.

”Saved one,” Ian says, flicking the makeshift envelope with his free hand and then carefully weighting it down under the bottle of lube next to him, ”special occasion.”

”Could say that again,” Mickey agrees, this anniversary nonsense really growing on him, ”here.”

He hands one of the nutrient bars back to Ian and dumps the hydration packs between them.

”Didn’t think I’d ever be hungry again,” he says as he digs into the bar, his stomach suddenly growling when he chews on the wholly nondescript food.

”Brain-body disconnect,” Ian hums around a big bite, ”it’s weird as fuck.”

They make quick work of the bars, washing them down with a couple of packs each of hydration jelly, tearing off the corners and squeezing it right into their mouthes, Ian looking at him while they’re doing it like he’s ready for round two.

Burping and scrunching up the empty pack in his hand, Mickey’s barely tossed it to the floor before he’s got Ian’s hand on his cheek, angling his face to the side so he can fit their lips together again. 

”Quick break,” he chuckles into Ian’s eager, soft lips and groans when Ian drops his jaw and lets him in, ”back to business.”

”That alright with you?” Ian teases him, keeping himself just out of reach with a wide grin until Mickey nods and moans when they crash back together.

Obviously not interested in breaking up their kissing for any reason, Ian keeps his face close as he slips down to stand on the floor and twists to move in front of Mickey for a second, before he without preamble climbs back up on the ledge, knees bracketing Mickey’s hips and their bodies pressing together as he rolls himself against Mickey and cups his hands around his neck. Mickey opens up wide when he feels the firm press of his tongue, pushing into his mouth, and he leans back a little to put down his hands and slowly crawl backwards as Ian follows, guiding them further up on the platform and stretching out on top of Mickey once they’ve got the room.

”You wanna light up now?” Ian asks, mumbling into the corner of Mickey’s mouth before he nudges their lips together.

”Sure,” Mickey agrees, reminding himself that they don’t have to hurry this shit right now. That they can take their time. He watches Ian sit up on his haunches and reach for the weed, unwrapping the paper and holding the joint between his lips as he flicks the lighter. Exhaling and tossing the lighter aside, Ian takes the joint from his lips and looks up at the smoke curling around his head and disappearing into thin air.

”You think this might screw with the machinery?” he wonders as he holds out the joint for Mickey to take, eyes still on the pipes and things running above them.

”Nah,” Mickey dismisses his concerns easily, taking the joint between two fingers and placing it to his lips when he folds his hands back behind his head, ”all the steam and shit in here, this gotta be like pissing in the ocean, don’t worry about it.”

Ian looks down at him and smiles, mind obviously back on better things when his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip.

Mickey watches him move closer, feeling his knees reflexively spreading his thighs apart when Ian bends over and looms over him, crawling in between his legs. He puts down one hand next to Mickey’s shoulder for support, and seems to search Mickey’s face for any sign of discomfort when his knuckles graze along the inside of his thigh and up to carefully press the tip of a finger to his hole.

Puffing on the joint, Mickey silently bends one of his knees and exposes his ass more, inviting Ian to breach him. He sigs out a pleased moan with a steady stream of smoke as Ian rubs his dry finger around the tight muscle and then carefully dips the tip in.

”This okay?” he asks, voice low and eyes serious until Mickey nods and pulls at the joint, and then blows a great plume of smoke into his face, Ian’s seriousness breaking into a wide grin through the haze. 

They smoke the joint down, Ian making use of the lube to slowly fuck his fingers into Mickey, starting with one and stopping at two to lazily set a steady pace, pulling the digits in and out until Mickey’s fucking tingling with the slow-building pleasure pooling in his gut and they’ve sent the joint back and forth for the last time, Mickey reaching over his head to stub it out.

”Stand up,” he says through the smoke trickling out his mouth and nostrils, smirking a little when Ian looks surprised but does as he’s told, pulling out his hand from Mickey’s ass and climbing off the platform to stand up and wait as Mickey scoots after him.

Mickey doesn’t waste time explaining himself, sinking down to his knees in front of Ian and taking his already firm dick deep in his mouth, sucking and licking and bobbing his head over it until it’s hard and standing when he pulls off, sucking on the saliva that’s collected in his mouth and, as lovingly as one can do these things, spits it on Ian’s already slick cock.

”Got lube for that,” Ian reminds him, but it doesn’t sound like a complaint when Mickey gets up and turns his back to him, leaning his hands on the edge of the platform and shoving his ass out. Ian groans behind him and then he’s pressing up against him, mouthing at the side of his neck and shoving himself inside without any further preamble, stretching Mickey’s hole just on the right side of painful as he’s pushing into it.

”Sing,” Ian breathes into his ear and Mickey’s huffing out a laugh that quickly turns into a drawn out moan when Ian pulls back and then stabs himself right back inside, hands on Mickey’s hips to press them together.

Ian fucks him hard, until Mickey’s shouting and cursing and grabbing behind himself at Ian’s neck and ass, his dick bouncing freely as he comes, cursing Ian’s name and the day he was born and Ian laughing helplessly into his ear before he melts against his back completely and shoots up inside him, hips jacking into Mickey’s jelly ass until he’s spent and soft again.

They stay down there for a good while longer, laid out on their backs and laughing at pretty much anything, goofy off of Art’s weed and their pretty goddamned satisfactory lovemaking, and talking about everything and nothing. The UV-lights have been turned off when they’ve gotten dressed and re-emerge in the real world, stepping out of the service elevator and seeking out one of the few washing facilities they know that are open at night, strolling down the balconies and looking out over the twinkling night lights of the underground city, scattered around the wide open space like stars.

They wash and get their clothes cleaned again, because if the jizz alone hadn’t been a good enough reason, the dirt and rust and grease from the engineering level seems to have gotten everywhere while they were too busy with each other to notice. 

Their usually lively home is dark and quiet when they crank open the door and sneak inside, listening to the soft snores of their lost boys and girls in the living room as they move through it and slip into their bedroom.

”Look,” Ian whispers when they get in there, the room still lit up by a faint night light that they haven’t bothered turning off since Yevgeny lived in here with Ian, and didn’t want to wake up in complete darkness at night. He’s on their bed now, curled up into a little ball under the covers.

”Jesus,” Mickey sighs, but can feel himself smiling anyway when he leans over his side of the bed and touches a hand to his kid’s cheek.

”Hi dad,” he mumbles, clearly more asleep than awake, ”you have a nice versary?”

”Yeah, kid, come on,” Mickey says, rubbing a hand over Yevgeny’s shoulder, ”got your own bed now, remember?”

But Yevgeny only hums and curls up, face pretty much disappearing into Ian’s pillow.

”There’s room,” Ian whispers and shrugs when Mickey glances up at him, sees him smiling fondly at the no doubt helpless look on Mickey’s face.

Mickey sighs but decides to give in, way too tired and content with having the kid sleep with them to argue and be the strict one right now, as he picks up the blanket to climb in and shuffle himself towards the middle of the bed. 

Gently shoving his son more towards Ian’s side of the bed, Mickey waits until he feels Ian getting in and snuggling up behind him before he pulls up the covers better and settles in, fitting Ian’s arm around himself and hugging it securely to his chest. He’s almost asleep already when he feels Ian stir, his warm breath moving up his neck to flow over the shell of his ear.

”Wake,” he hums, his lips moving over Mickey’s tingling skin with a wide grin when Mickey sighs, ”from your sleep, the drying of your tears.”

Mickey lets go of his hand to blindly reach up and none too gently pat his ridiculous boyfriend on the cheek.

”Mention that I like Radiohead to anyone not currently in this room,” he threatens in a bored mumble, ”an’ I’ll cut your fuckin’ tongue out.”

”Okay,” Ian agrees, pressing a quick kiss behind Mickey’s ear and dropping back down on the pillow.

”Love you,” Mickey mutters, instead of ’thank you’.

”Today,” Ian sighs, the cold tip of his nose nudging into the back of Mickey’s neck, ”we escape.”

 

_We escape._

 

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the end, my friends. I'm not good at this! Thank you everyone for coming with me on this journey and for not killing me when I turned this world upside down on you. You're all brilliant and I'll see you next time.
> 
> ❤ ❤ ❤
> 
>    
> [Exit Music (for a film)](https://youtu.be/50rlHVe6g9Q)


End file.
